The treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire Documents presented to Viscount Grey of Fallodon (part 2 of 4)

The treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire Documents presented to Viscount Grey of Fallodon (part 2 of 4)

On Thursday, the 5th August, the rumour spread that the Russian troops were again to be withdrawn from Urmia. This very naturally frightened the entire Christian population, and on Thursday evening all Christians, except those already on the road and those physically unable to be on the road, were in the streets of the city and on the roads leading northward from the city, waiting for the departure of the foot-soldiers, with whom they intended to leave. Knowing the probable fate of any who might stay behind, we were, of course, not ready to discourage the people from going. Still, we had no official word of the anticipated evacuation, and were, therefore, perplexed as to our own duty. The breaking up of a good proportion of our missionary work, the removal of the bulk of the relief work to a different place, and the uncertainty of America’s future position all contributed to indicate that a portion at least of the Station should move in case of an evacuation. On Friday morning we learned that the foot-soldiers had left, and one of our men, on visiting the Russian Consul, was told that all who were going should be off by 2 p.m. that day. The Station felt that its force should be reduced to the minimum, and that at least all women and children should leave. Very hasty preparations were made. Mr. McDowell, Mr. Labaree and Dr. Packard volunteered to stay in Urmia, and all the rest were to leave. When we got on the road, however, we found that Mrs. Packard and her children and Miss Burgess were not of the party. Mrs. Packard had decided to brave the Station vote and stay by her husband, and Miss Burgess stayed to be with Mrs. Packard and to assist the medical work. The fugitive party, therefore, consisted of Dr. Shedd and his two daughters, Mr. and Mrs. Allen with their two sons and one daughter, Dr. and Mrs. Coan, Mrs. Cochran, Miss Lewis, Miss Lamme, Miss Schoebel, and Mrs. Müller and myself with our daughter. We went in carriages, using some donkeys and horses bought the last two hours before our departure.

At the end of our second day’s journey we reached a village, Kudchi, where we found perhaps 20,000 or 30,000 Syrian refugees, whose further flight had been arrested by the Russian commanding officer with the good news that a decisive victory had made the evacuation of Urmia unnecessary. All were told to go back. Unless the missionaries would return, however, the natives were unwilling to trust themselves alone. Nothing was left but for some to return, especially since this was requested by the officer in command of the troops there. Dr. Shedd and his daughters, Mrs. Cochran and Dr. and Mrs. Coan consequently turned back. This gave the crowd heart and they, too, went back. But the tables were soon turned again, and before the foot-sore crowd reached the city they were again turned back with the word that there was fighting with the Kurds on Mount Seir. The missionaries had reached the city and were there during the fighting on Mount Seir. It seemed advisable for them to leave again, as conditions were very uncertain, in spite of the fact that the Russian Consul with a number of Cossacks had stayed by his post during all this time. They, that is Dr. Shedd and his two daughters, and Dr. and Mrs. Coan, left for the second time on Friday the 13th August. This time Mrs. Cochran stayed behind.

Meanwhile, those of us who had continued on our journey from Kudchi arrived in Tabriz on Friday the 13th August, after a journey free from mishaps, but nevertheless wearing for us who were still typhoid and typhus convalescents. Every one in the party with the exception of Mrs. Allen and the Allen children had recently had the fever.

43. SECOND EXODUS FROM URMIA: NARRATIVE OF A NESTORIAN VICTIM, THE WIFE OF THE REV. DAVID JACOB, OF URMIA, PUBLISHED IN THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “ARARAT” OF LONDON, JANUARY, 1916.

As a native of Urmia and myself a refugee who has fallen into great trouble, I am writing a few short details about my unfortunate nation. For centuries as Christians we have been crushed by the enemies that surround us. Our best looking girls have been forced to deny their creed; our men have been killed, our homes plundered, and our property has been robbed.

In all these troubles we lived under the Persian Government, and obeyed their rules; we have never been untrue to them, or disobedient. For the past seventy years the only help we have had has come through the English and American Missions that have been in Urmia. When the Russians arrived at Urmia it was a delight to us, we thought our rights would be more clearly established; of course, things were much better than before; all the country was safer than it ever had been. This was like a dream for a few years; all of a sudden, when this terrible war began, we felt almost certain that it would harm us, although we never dreamed that it would bring us under such a curse.

In the cold January, when even the beasts do not wish to go out from their caves, the people were left homeless, bleeding, impoverished and starving. This all happened when the Russian forces withdrew from Urmia; very many left their beloved and comfortable homes, and started with them on an endless journey, which caused the death of many dear souls from cold and hunger. The rest of the Christians crowded into the American Mission compounds, with nothing left; here they were fed on a morsel of bread which came through the kindness of the Missionaries. There is a great deal to tell of the misery of the people during the last winter; it was a life too wretched for humanity. Those that were used to comfortable beds now slept on the bare ground. For five months of captivity we lived expecting death every minute, surrounded by sick people who needed help; our little children died of measles; our young and strong ones could not stand the terrible epidemics of typhoid and typhus, while the elderly people could not live such a hard life; they died in the first weeks, of dysentery. Now the villages were plundered and mostly burned, a good many people killed, and our little girls and women wickedly tortured (very many even now have not been found; they were mercilessly carried into captivity); through all this long time of anxiety and expectation, during which our time was given to weeping, we prayed that God would once more save us by sending the Russians to our rescue.

It was a great relief when we heard that the Russians, for their own interests, were coming to Urmia once more. After their coming the people were at liberty, and were able to go out into the country once more. For three months they tried to live in the villages, though a very poor and wretched life it was, with everything gone and most of the buildings burned. In these hard times we were thankful to the American Missionaries and the Russian Consul who helped us in settling down. Although at this time we did not do any evil to our enemies who had treated us so unkindly, we heard them say that if once more the Russian army should leave Urmia, no Christian would be safe.

On the 4th August the peasants crowded into the city of Urmia; they had heard indirectly about the armies leaving. It was a sight that could not be described. The sick, helpless little children were terrified. All night and the next day the road that led towards the Russian border was full of refugees, although the Consul assured us that he would not leave without warning us; but the fear was so great that nothing could keep us back.

In the first invasion of Urmia[62] some of those that dwelt inside the city gates were in more security than the villagers, although they were fined a great deal and suffered many hardships and losses of property, and there had been deaths in almost every home; but this second attack meant that we must leave all and flee. On Friday morning, with sober face and heavy heart, I left my dear home. I am grateful to God that until now my home had not been robbed, so that it was very hard for me to leave its comfort and start out into the world with no hope of returning again. With many other comrades in the same plight, we began our dreadful journey. For two families we had a little cart in which we put a few necessary coverings, a little bread, and my three little children. It was very hard for us to leave our property, but life is dearer than all the riches of the world.

On the way we met all classes of people, the rich and poor were reduced to the same level; very few had carriages, because our neighbours would not hire us any, some had horses and donkeys, but the majority had to walk with great bundles on their backs. We were quite unused to such a hard journey; some sat on the roadside and wept from sore feet; it was hard to walk in shoes, and without shoes the sun burned them until the blood came; dear, innocent children died on the way; it broke the parents’ hearts to part with them; old and feeble men and women were left behind; little unlucky babies were born in the sight of the passers-by; everyone was in need of help, but no help could be found. We were like the Israelites scattered in the desert, only they had Moses to conduct them to Canaan, while we had no one.

The first night we were so tired and exhausted that we stopped in a place that had very little water, a dry, dusty place; our bed was the ground, our pillow a stone, the sky our quilt. The little excited children cried all night; large crowds of people were coming all night; while some rested and went on, others from behind took their place. The next day we were so tired and hopeless that we wished we had died at home and had not started on such an endless and aimless pilgrimage.

It broke my heart when I met a little girl; her feet were sore and she could walk no further. She cried, “Oh mother! Oh, God!” The mother had a heavy load and could not carry the child, the father was killed, they had no friends. I carried the little girl on my back for about half-a-mile, but could not any further. It was too heart-breaking. Why should innocent children suffer so?

Our next stop was a better place; it had splendid, cool water, and shade; but the people were so many that bread was scarce, starvation was upon us. A great many were sick by this time and could not move. This was a Moslem town; they did not like to have us there, but they could not turn us out on account of the Russian soldiers being near. There were Christian villages on our way, but by this time they had all been destroyed. Here we stopped a few days. We heard that the Cossacks had not left Urmia entirely; they had moved their headquarters a few miles, so that we had hope that we would not lose all. From here some of us went to Tabriz, which is a larger city, and a little safer than other places. Now we are a nation scattered like the flock without a shepherd, some living here and some there, a miserable existence. Some have gone back to Urmia; most of them have found all their crops gone. If we had not left Urmia this second time, our condition would not be so hard as it is now, the places near the city having mostly been kept safe by the kindness of the Russian Consul, who did not leave Urmia; but in the more distant places the crops and vineyards have all been destroyed. We are more than grateful to the Americans, who have ransomed our lives from death by the money that has been spent for us the last winter. We hope and pray for the victory of the Allies, that through their kindness the rest of us might live. So far one-third of our nation has perished, and even we who survive are so broken by the strain we have suffered that sometimes we are hopeless. Now we are facing a winter of famine and wretchedness, homes without bedding and clothes. Of course nobody can supply all our needs. In addition to our own trouble, our countrymen from Turkey are taking refuge in the Urmia district, and their condition is worse than ours.

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Footnote 62:

By the Turks and Kurds.

44. URMIA DISTRICT: REPORT ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF RELIEF, COVERING THE PERIOD 1st JUNE TO 31st DECEMBER, 1915; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

At the beginning of June, 1915, when the people emerged from our premises emaciated from sickness and malnutrition and crushed by the blow that had fallen upon them, they were confronted by a seemingly hopeless situation. Practically all their household furnishings and food supplies had been plundered; the same was true of their domestic animals, on which they depended in large measure for their subsistence. Their houses were without any doors and windows, and probably a full third of them had been demolished. They were in terror about going back to their villages; they feared their Moslem neighbours, who had despoiled them of their property, outraged their wives and daughters, and killed many of their relatives; they feared, too, lest the Russian troops might again withdraw and leave them to the mercy of their enemies; and they were anxious lest the missionaries who had sheltered them for the previous months might forget them when they were out of sight. Everything tended to make them cling to our Mission compounds or their vicinity. To permit them to do this was of course out of the question. Our efforts, however, to scatter them to their village homes formed one of the most pitiful phases of our relief work. The people had to go, but as long as they received their bread from our yards they would not; and so we had no choice but to cut off the food supply, after giving each family sufficient flour to support them a week. At the same time, with the help of the newly arrived Russian Consul, pressure was brought to bear upon the landlords of the Christian villages to support their tenants until harvest. Some of these could not, because they themselves had been plundered; others would not, in spite of Consular pressure; and others promised to give the needed assistance, but delayed it from day to day with all the ingenuity of excuse for which the Orient is notorious. The result was that our yards were thronged daily with hundreds of people clamouring for food. To give way would have nullified all our efforts to get the people on to their own feet; and only when it was absolutely clear that nothing could be gotten from the landlords of any one village did we assume any degree of support for the people of the village. Little by little progress was made, and although the villagers were wretchedly miserable, the approaching harvest made subsistence by their own effort possible, and virtually all food distribution ceased for a period of three months.

There was another form of relief, however, that was imperative. In the vast majority of villages there was not a spade to use in repairing their houses, in ridding their vineyards of weeds or in burying their dead, and there was not a scythe or sickle with which to reap their harvest. The best and surest way to help the people was to give them these implements, and so for upwards of a month we virtually subsidised all the blacksmiths of the city in our endeavour to get these instruments in time for the harvest. When we closed this department of our relief work, we had distributed 2,661 scythes and sickles and 1,129 spades at a cost of 18,909.90 krans. (The exchange value of a silver kran is approximately 4½_d._)

By the beginning of August the situation was considerably more hopeful. The people with Consular help had succeeded in collecting a good deal of their plundered property, including bedding, household utensils and a few cattle; the harvest was good, although the acreage was below the average, and the promise of the vineyards was excellent. Then fell another blow, what seemed an inexplicable Providence. Events in another section of the war necessitated orders for a sudden withdrawal of the Russian troops, and the evacuation was actually carried out with the exception of a small force which remained with the Consul on the hills outside the city. With the going of their protectors the whole Christian population of the plain, with the exception of some 200 sick and aged who again took refuge in the Mission yards, fled, some only to the northern edge of the plain, but many to Salmas and Khoi and even Djoulfa. Fortunately it was summer time, but even so the misery was intense, and cholera and want and hardship claimed many victims in those few weeks. Worse still, much that the people had reclaimed of their stolen property and gathered from their fields was taken once more by their Moslem neighbours; and so, after nearly a month of miserable hardship and uncertainty, the poor Syrians and Armenians returned to their twice plundered homes. Very little relief, however, was given during the next few weeks; for from the fields and vineyards much could still be secured in the way of food.

At this time we calculated that about 10,000 to 15,000 of the Christian inhabitants would have to be supported during! the winter months, and we were making our plans accordingly, when a new and overwhelming burden descended upon us. For months the Syrians of Kurdistan had been holding their own in their mountain fastnesses, hoping for succour from the Russians. When this failed and their enemies increased on every hand, they had to flee—many, many perishing in the attempt. Some 30,000 of them arrived at last in Salmas and the neighbourhood in almost absolute destitution. A few succeeded in bringing a part of their sheep, but most came with nothing, half-naked, and without any means of livelihood. This army of wretchedness was halted by the authorities on the plain of Salmas and on the hills surrounding it, until their location should be determined upon. Mr. McDowell of our Relief Committee, who has had years of experience among these people, left at once for Salmas and grappled with the serious problem of their immediate relief. But for the assistance given by our Committee there, hundreds of them would have perished from hunger. As it was, cholera, typhoid and pneumonia did their worst among a people wasted by hardship, unprotected from the cold and without shelter. Shortly the streams of suffering humanity began to pour across the pass that separates the Salmas from the Urmia plain, and to scatter themselves in the villages of this section. A few weeks before we had been wondering how the inhabitants of the plain would find shelter for themselves in their half-ruined villages; but from the accompanying statistical report[63] it will be seen that they have made room for nearly 16,000 refugees from other districts. For example, the village of Geogtapa has doubled its population, having received as many of these guests as it had inhabitants of its own.

About the middle of October we began to take steps in preparation for our winter relief work. The first thing was to buy up all supplies of wheat that we could secure while the price was low—the lowest for years, for the purchasers were few and the owners anxious to turn their crops into cash before any more untoward events might transpire. The wheat thus secured was stored in different parts of the plain accessible as distributing centres. The doing of this required quite a force of reliable men, who could act as wheat buyers and weighers.

The next step was to get accurate lists of the actually destitute in every village. This was no easy task, for many felt themselves entitled to assistance who were not wholly destitute, and to discover who were really in want, among the hundreds of poverty-stricken, plundered inhabitants of each village, required both tact and firmness. The task was made doubly hard by the constant stream of new arrivals from Salmas. On the basis of these lists tickets were issued for bedding and for food—the two most crying needs.

For bedding it was decided to issue large wool quilts, large enough to cover several persons. These we found could be made for three or three and a half tomans (12_s._) per quilt. Under the efficient direction of Miss Lewis, and later of Miss Lamme, a quilt factory was started, which in time employed over a hundred needy women in carding wool and sewing the quilts. This factory during its three months’ existence consumed over 84,000 yards of calico, 35,000 pounds of wool, and some 1,500 pounds of cotton, and expended over 18,000 tomans; it taxed the resources of the dry goods merchants to supply our demand and it quite exhausted the wool supplies of the city. Our plan was to give only one quilt to four persons, families of over four to receive two or more according to the number of members; but after the issue of tickets we found that we could not possibly supply the need, and so regretfully we had to limit our giving to one quilt to a family. The inadequacy of this relief was seen when we began to distribute to the families of mountaineers; for with them all the brothers and their wives and children form one family, and it was not uncommon to have families of over 20, one being as high as 35. But in spite of their inadequacy, the 5,510 quilts issued have saved the lives of many, for literally thousands were facing the rigours of winter without any bedding whatever.

Our wheat distribution, too, had to be of the most economical nature. We issued what was supposed to be a two months’ supply at one time, giving a Russian pood and a half per capita for this period, that is, about 50 pounds. To the widows and orphans and to the new comers from the mountains we gave flour instead of wheat, the actual cost of this assistance in food at current prices being two and a half shahis per day to a person, or between a half-penny and three-farthings. But even with this small gratuity, the total amount given of wheat and flour was 4,000 poods, or about 140,000 pounds, costing about the same as the quilts, that is, about 18,000 tomans.

With these small gifts to individuals amounting in the aggregate to large figures, and with the similar work that has been done in Salmas and Khoi, and even for the district of Albek, our funds have been exhausted, and we are waiting now to see what the generosity of America will do about it. Had it not been for this generosity, many would have died of hunger and cold the last two months, for, apart from what our Committee has done, very little has reached the people from any other source. We are grateful indeed to acknowledge the receipt of considerable sums from his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury for the Syrian refugees from the mountains, but still the largest part has come and must come from America. We shall have to look to our friends in America for their continued aid, if this unfortunate people, the victims of Mohammedan hate, are to be kept this winter and established in their homes once more.

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Footnote 63:

Omitted here.

45. AZERBAIJAN: STATEMENT, DATED TIFLIS, 22nd FEBRUARY, 1916, BY MR. M. PHILIPS PRICE, WAR CORRESPONDENT FOR VARIOUS BRITISH AND AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS ON THE CAUCASIAN FRONT; COMMUNICATED TO ANEURIN WILLIAMS, ESQ., M.P., AND PUBLISHED IN THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “ARARAT,” OF LONDON, MARCH, 1916.

In the October of last year I came to Diliman on the plain of Salmas in north-west Persia. I had been in Urmia during September and had seen the condition of the Assyrians (mostly Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant) in the low country round that lake. The American missionaries of Urmia were doing a great deal, and on the whole the condition of the country was not so very bad. There was housing accommodation and a good deal of corn, and it seemed as if the Americans would keep the situation in hand. But in Salmas there was a very different state of affairs. At the end of September, 25,000 mountain Nestorians from the Tkhuma, Baz and Tiari regions, who had been fighting with the Kurds all summer and had had to flee for lack of ammunition, came pouring into the plain led by their Patriarch, Mar Shimun, and began to plant themselves down in the orchards and gardens round the villages. All the villages of the plain were already occupied, and, as the winter was just setting in, their condition without housing, food and clothing was desperate. I sent a message to Mr. Shipley, the British Consul at Tabriz, telling him of the situation, and he telegraphed to the Archbishop of Canterbury for financial assistance. Meanwhile relief committees were organised under the Russian Consul Akimovitch, the Armenian Bishop Nerses, who lent funds from the Armenians of the Caucasus, and an American Missionary from Urmia, Mr. McDowell, with funds from America, and they began to organise relief during November and December. The method adopted was to distribute to all the refugees, Armenians and Assyrians alike, a daily allowance of 10 kopecks a day, since increased to 15 kopecks, and to distribute warm quilts and coats from materials purchased in the bazaars of Diliman and Khoi. Some medical detachments of the Russian Red Cross and Soyus Gorodof were sent with medical aid to combat typhus and dysentery, which was beginning to and still is taking many in toll of the refugees. As regards the medical side of the relief, I am inclined to doubt the possibility of making effective provision under the circumstances. There are not sufficient skilled doctors, and it is impossible to get drugs through from the Caucasus in sufficient quantity to do much good.

I did not observe on my return to Salmas after a journey to Van in November any real improvement in the health of the refugees. Every day a hundred or more Assyrians and Armenians were dying in the villages round Diliman, and the same thing is going on now.

It seems to me (and these friends of mine, who have also been there and have seen the conditions, agree with me), that it is impossible under the circumstances to combat the disease by medical assistance. The hardy mountaineers from the headwaters of the Great Zab and Tigris can best be helped by giving them the means to resist disease. Once disease has hold of them, no half measures of medical relief can help. I am therefore strongly of opinion that, if more relief is sent, it should take the form of money, which should go to increase the daily allowances of the refugees, enabling them to buy for themselves, from the Persians of Diliman, food and clothing, which alone will enable them to resist disease.

The position is now as follows. When I left Diliman for Van at the end of October, I saw in the regions round Bashkalé another 5,000 or 6,000 Assyrian and a sprinkling of Armenians living in caves of the rocks or in the open, and feeding on raw grains of wheat, which they were picking from the ruined corn-fields. On my return in January most of these were in Salmas, and so I think about 30,000 Assyrian and Armenian refugees are now there—that is, after deducting 15 per cent. as loss from disease in the last three months. The Russian and American relief organisations which are working there of course stand in need of more money to carry on their work effectively. In order to save the refugees from starving, doles of money must be given out to them till next harvest at least. I should certainly think that the Americans, whose committee is centred in Tabriz, under the American Consul there, are doing the best work with the means at their disposal. With the Russian organisation there is more delay and greater leakage. Relief is being given impartially by the Americans to Assyrians and Armenians of all denominations. This cannot always be guaranteed for the Russian organisation.

I would therefore strongly appeal for further help for the distressed refugees of this ancient Assyrian Church, together with their brethren of the Armenian Gregorian, Catholic and Protestant faiths, and should suggest that it be sent to the British Consul at Tabriz to distribute with the American missionaries in the form of increased daily allowances for food and clothing.

V. THE REFUGEES IN THE CAUCASUS.

For two months—June and July, 1915—the Armenians of Van enjoyed an autonomous national government under Russian protection. But in the last days of July the Ottoman armies on this front received strong reinforcements, and were able once more to take the offensive. The Russian troops began to fall back from Van on the 30th July, and practically the entire Armenian population of the Vilayet accompanied them in their retirement.

The retreat was unexpected. The refugees had few conveyances and hardly any provisions; and, though their rear was protected against the descents of the Kurds by the heroic fighting of the Cossacks and the Armenian Volunteers, the suffering and mortality, during their flight over almost trackless mountains, was appalling.

At Etchmiadzin and Erivan, across the Russian frontier, the Armenian refugees were joined by the stream of Nestorian fugitives from Urmia, and the total number of Christian exiles in the Caucasus rose to over a hundred and eighty thousand.

The Turks only retained their hold on Van for a few weeks, but that was sufficient for their purpose. They did what they had done at Bitlis, Moush and Sassoun; and when the Russians returned, they found that all the inhabitants who had stayed behind had been massacred, and all the towns and villages burnt to the ground, including Van itself.

As soon as security had been re-established, the refugees began to return, slowly, to build up their ruined homes. But the majority of them still remained in the Caucasus, where they had arrived in utter destitution. The Caucasian Armenians rose magnificently to the occasion. The brunt of the relief work fell upon them, and their organisation was as admirable as their generosity. They were subsequently reinforced by aid from London, Boston, and, above all, from Moscow; but the magnitude of the task was overwhelming, and the need continued to be very great.

46. THE FLIGHT TO THE CAUCASUS: DESPATCHES TO THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “HORIZON” OF TIFLIS, FROM MR. SAMPSON AROUTIOUNIAN, PRESIDENT OF THE ARMENIAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE OF TIFLIS, WHO WENT IN PERSON TO MEET THE REFUGEES.

=(a) Despatch dated Etchmiadzin, 12th August, 1915.=

The road from Igdir to Etchmiadzin (about 30 kilometres) is choked with groups of sick and destitute refugees. They have now waited there several days exposed to the full heat of the sun, although they have passes authorising them to proceed to Etchmiadzin. There is urgent need for a special body of workers to organise and forward these refugees.

=(b) Despatch dated Etchmiadzin, 13th August, 1915.=

Between the Turkish frontier and Igdir (the first Russian village), the whole countryside is filled to overflowing with refugees. Further on, between Igdir and Etchmiadzin, all the gardens and vineyards are full of them. At Igdir, the first arrival depot, a mass of 20,000 has accumulated, and another of 45,000 at Etchmiadzin; from these two centres they are being distributed in groups to other districts. At Etchmiadzin a hospital has been installed, as well as baths and a hospice for the orphans. Between Igdir and the Turkish frontier there are patrols of horsemen searching for the children, the sick and other stragglers, and seeing to the removal of the corpses. About fifty orphans arrive every day at Igdir; part of them are kept there, the others are sent on to Etchmiadzin.

The refugees from Van and the surrounding country have traversed the whole distance on foot. The majority of them are sick and starving, having been able to take nothing with them at the moment of departure. In the course of their journey they have not been attacked except at Bergri-Kala, where a band of Kurds cut the defenceless column and headed off about 20,000 people at the rear end of it, whose fate we do not know. As a result of famine and fatigue, a large number of the refugees have been more or less severely attacked by various epidemics, especially by dysentery.

The stream flows without ceasing, and it is impossible to estimate the numbers with any exactitude. At Igdir, with the assistance of Aram, ex-Governor of the province of Van, and other representatives of the refugees, we fixed them approximately at the following figures:

Van district, 203,000; Melashkerd, 60,000, not including those who reached here at an earlier date. The average mortality amounts to 15 deaths a day at Igdir, and 40 at Etchmiadzin.

The care of all these refugees falls upon the Armenian organisations, principally upon the Committee of Fraternal Assistance at Etchmiadzin and the National Committee. The relief available is utterly inadequate to such boundless misery. The refugees need food, medical aid and clothing, especially linen and boots. There is a dearth of travelling kitchens, tents and carts. To stamp out the contagious diseases, it is indispensable to install medical stations in all the villages.

=(c) Despatch dated Etchmiadzin, 13th August, 1915.=

Hundreds of thousands of refugees are arriving at Etchmiadzin from Turkish Armenia. There seems no end to these solid columns moving forward in a cloud of dust. The majority are women and children, barefoot, exhausted and starving. Their accounts of the atrocities committed by the Turks and Kurds reveal indescribable horrors. The panic which set these poor people in flight came upon them absolutely unawares; parents lost their children, and children their parents. A great number of these lost children, without food and worn out as they were, were unable to keep up and died on the road. Others have been, picked up by rescue parties, and there are now at Igdir and Etchmiadzin about 500 of these little motherless creatures. We make an urgent appeal to all Armenian ladies to come to the aid of these abandoned little ones.

=(d) Despatch dated Erivan, 21st August, 1915.=

The stream of refugees still flows, but with a slacker current. At the present moment more than 35,000 of them have accumulated at Etchmiadzin, and 20,000 at Erivan. In spite of all the zeal displayed by the Relief Committee of Etchmiadzin, under the presidency of the Prelate Bagrad, and by the National Committees of Tiflis and Moscow, with their numerous affiliated Committees, the situation is extraordinarily harrowing. There is an absolute shortage of bread, hot food and medical assistance. The majority of the refugees are ill. At Etchmiadzin and Erivan several hospitals have been installed, which are providing for about 1,500 sick people; yet there are still great numbers of the seriously sick lying out under walls, in open courtyards, or even in the streets. They are suffering terribly from dysentery. The mortality is enormous; the day before yesterday they buried 103 people at Etchmiadzin, and yesterday 80.

At the Etchmiadzin Secondary School, 3,500 children who have lost their parents are huddled together. They sleep on the floor. Yesterday evening I visited the building; in the big hall I counted 110 babies lying on the floor absolutely naked; some of them were sleeping, others were crying. The effect was so harrowing that one could not restrain one’s tears. The sight was too terrible for me to stand, and I fled from this hell. But in the courtyard an equally painful scene awaited me. Under the walls and in the corners there were refugees lying everywhere. One heard the cries of the sick; here and there one saw corpses. In front of the monastery gate I found the lifeless bodies of three children. The women of Vaharshapat and other places are sewing clothes and preparing bedding material, but such aid is quite insufficient. Professor Kishkin, the representative of the “Homo-Russe Society,” has just arrived from Moscow to inspect the condition of the refugees and organise all the relief available. He told us that beyond Erivan a supply station has been established at Arkhta[64], where the refugees are receiving dry bread, and still there is not enough of that to go around. Wherever the refugees stop, there is sickness, but no medical aid. Professor Kishkin gave the necessary orders for the immediate installation of properly-equipped medical stations between Etchmiadzin and Aghstafa, and has written to the Central Committee at Moscow for doctors, travelling kitchens, clothing, linen, etc.

-----

Footnote 64:

Nijni Arkha (?).

47. THE FLIGHT TO THE CAUCASUS: DESPATCH FROM THE SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT OF THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “AREV” OF BAKOU.

The immense procession, sinking under its agony and fatigue, forces itself along and moves forward without respite. The head of the column came to a standstill some time ago at Igdir; reduced to utter despair, it is fluctuating aimlessly hither and thither. No pen can describe what this tragic procession has endured, or what experiences it has lived through, on its interminable road. The least detail of them makes the human heart quail, and draws an unquenchable stream of bitter tears from one’s eyes. In the act of writing this, my pen trembles in my hand, and I inscribe these lines with my tears.

Each fraction of the long procession has its individual history, its especial pangs. It is impossible to describe or record them all. Here is a mother with her six little children, one on her back, the second clasped to her breast; the third falls down on the road, and cries and wails because it cannot drag itself further. The three others begin to wail in sympathy, and the poor mother stands stock still, tearless, like a statue, utterly powerless to help.

Here is the road again and a broken cart on it, the sole hope of a large family. The sick mother has been laid upon it, as well as the children and the provisions. The father, an elderly man, gazes in despair at the cart he must abandon. In that moment he lived through a whole tragedy. But, come what may, they must always move forward.

And here is another mother, quite young and clad in rags. She wraps her dead baby in a shawl, puts it down out of the traffic, hugs it for the last time, and goes on her way without looking behind her.

Another scene—a mother once more with little children. She was carrying two of them in her arms; the third was clinging to her skirts, weeping and crying to be taken up in her arms like the rest. Tears were pouring in streams from the young mother’s eyes. She made a sudden movement, shook off the child who was hanging to her skirts, left it on the road and walked off quickly, so as not to see its agony or hear its wailing. From behind rose the cry: “Who has lost her baby?” The cry reached the mother’s ears, but she stopped her ears and hurried on.

Here is a whole group of women with white hair, bent double, all of them, and marching in silence and with bowed heads. Where are they going? They do not know. They are going wherever the vast procession carries them.

Oh! these mothers, the mothers of Armenia—are there anywhere in the world other mothers who have borne the indescribable sufferings which have fallen upon them?

And so one scene succeeds another, each more fearful than the last. Often one closes one’s eyes to shut them out. The fact that one is powerless in the face of such suffering prostrates one’s spirit. The procession moves forward at a surprising pace, under the imperious goad of terror. In the rear the Kurds had swarmed down from the mountains and opened fire on the column of refugees. Strung to the fullest stretch of anguish and terror, the procession pushes forward across the lofty mountains and the deep valleys, devoured by thirst under a burning sun. There are many in that company who curse the day of their birth.

Now, exhausted by privation and broken by fatigue, the procession halts at Igdir, floods the streets, fills every corner, and mounts up along the river bank and into the open fields.

48. MEMORANDUM ON THE CONDITION OF ARMENIAN REFUGEES IN THE CAUCASUS AND ORPHANS AT VAN: COMPILED IN THE BRITISH FOREIGN OFFICE FROM INFORMATION, DATED 9th DECEMBER, 1915, WHICH WAS FURNISHED BY MR. STEVENS, BRITISH CONSUL AT BATOUM.

In order to secure reliability in the application of funds collected in the United Kingdom to the immediate and actual relief of Armenian refugees who have sought shelter in the Caucasus, it is generally agreed that remittances should be sent to the “Armenian Central Relief Committee for Victims of the War” at Tiflis. The President of the Committee is Mr. Sampson Aroutiounian, and the Treasurer Mr. G.M. Zurinov. A Special Refugee Committee is working under the ægis of this body, and is stated to have representatives on the spot attending to the immediate needs of the refugees. Apart from this, the Central Committee has Branch Committees in all those principal towns of Transcaucasia where the Armenian element predominates. They are all engaged in collecting for relief work.

It is a task of the greatest difficulty, in existing circumstances, without visiting the localities where refugees are now concentrated and investigating matters on the spot, to obtain an absolutely correct description of the extent of the alleged distress amongst refugees within the Armenian refugee pale. That distress is acute—indeed, very acute—is, however, universally admitted. No two opinions differ on this point: suffering everywhere, the outlook dark and the need for relief work, and above all pecuniary aid, urgent.

Attention is also called to the urgent necessity for winter dwellings, fuel, and warm clothing, and to the inadequate staff of competent doctors, nurses and assistants to deal with the exceptional amount of illness which exists among the refugees; and, in general, to the insufficiency of medicines, medical accessories, equipment, disinfectants, and every other kind of commodity required for securing a minimum degree of comfort for the refugees.

Sums of Rs. 250,000 (£25,000), Rs. 10,000 (£1,000), and Rs. 700 (£70) have just been remitted to Bakou, Elizavetpol, and Igdir, respectively, for the maintenance of the refugee lazarettos at those places.

Rs. 25,000 (£2,500)—a donation by a rich Armenian gentleman named Mantashev—have recently been spent by the Mayor of Tiflis in procuring warm bedding, as for instance mattresses, quilts, and pillow cases, which have been sent to Igdir, Delijan, Novo-Bayazid and Elizavetpol for the use of refugees.

With the available funds at the disposal of the various organisations in this country, which are not relatively proportionate to the heavy expenditure called forth by the urgent requirements of the refugees from Asia Minor, relief work obviously cannot be undertaken by them in the needed degree, owing to the very considerable numbers of fugitives who are finding their way to the Caucasus from many parts of the Empire, and whose claims on the moneys belonging to the Societies are as urgent as those of the Armenian refugees.

The unsatisfactory character of the conditions obtaining in regard to the question of relieving the refugees has been recognised by the various Armenian Refugee Committees in the Caucasus, and an Extraordinary Meeting of the Bakou Branch was convened quite recently. At this meeting it was decided to endeavour to improve relief work within as short a period as possible, and several modifications in the existing system have, it appears, been recommended. It is reported that the principal feature of the changes that are to take place is the issue of rations, which in future are to be partly in kind and partly in the form of a cash allowance—the latter at the rate of 20 copecks (about 4d.) per adult and 15 copecks (about 3d.) per child per diem. A further cash allowance of two roubles per adult per month is to be issued for rental.

Mr. Papadjanov, Member of the Imperial Duma for the Armenian constituencies, who is on a special visit to the Caucasus for the purpose of gaining a close knowledge of conditions on the spot, was present at the above meeting and has been furnished with full details in regard to the situation and the working of the several Relief Committees. He has since visited the Viceroy and is reported to have proceeded to the districts situated within the refugee pale. After this visit, he will better be able to form an opinion as to the needs of the refugees; and, before he returns to Petrograd, in all probability, a conference of delegates of all the Armenian Refugee Committees in the Caucasus will be held at Tiflis for the final discussion of the urgency of the situation.

The funds at the disposal of the Tiflis Central Committee are apparently exhausted, and Rs. 2,000 (£200) have recently been advanced by the Tiflis Municipality to meet the immediate requirements of the refugees. The Provincial Governor has been requested by the Mayor to give his support to the negotiations which are in progress for a grant of £1,000 by the State, until further funds can be raised for the more urgent needs of the refugees.

Meanwhile, it is reported that the Katholikos has received 120 bales of warm clothing from America, and Mr. Hatisov, Mayor of Tiflis, another 11 bales of the same kind of wearing apparel from London, for distribution among the refugees.

A large quantity of warm clothing, a portion of which has recently been sent from Moscow to the Caucasus and another lot prepared by the Ladies’ Committee of the Central Refugee Committee, has been quite recently forwarded to Djoulfa, Diliman and Van for the refugees. Warm clothing for the use of fugitives has also been sent, by the Central Committee, to Aghstafa and Alexandropol.

From Van it is announced in the “Kavkazskoyé Slovo” that only about 1,600 Armenians remain there, but that many refugees are returning from the Caucasus. About 4,000 fugitives are in the country adjacent to Van. Great difficulty is being experienced in procuring bread and meat, and all other commodities required for domestic purposes are unobtainable. Everything has to be brought from Khoi over very bad roads, the journey occupying five to six days. Motor traffic on the roads is impossible. In view of the deplorable conditions obtaining in the town, the establishment of a hospital at Van is strongly disadvised; in fact, a measure of the kind is stated to be outside the bounds of possibility. In view of the anti-sanitary condition at Van, sickness of every kind is prevalent among the orphans of massacred Armenians, large numbers of whom have now accumulated at Van and in its district. The children are fatherless and motherless. They are in a terrible condition. Most of them are starving, and have become so emaciated that they look more like skeletons than human beings. All buildings at Van have been destroyed by fire. No places of refuge exist for the infants. The Field Lazaretto of a Russian regiment has taken some of these orphans under its care and protection, and they seek warmth and shelter under the overcoats of the Russian soldiers.

From subsequent reports which have been received, it appears that the numbers of refugees from Turkish Asia Minor and the Urmia district who have taken refuge in the Caucasus are approximately as follows:—

(a) In the Government of Elizavetpol:—2,788 men, 4,031 women and 3,853 children of both sexes, or a total of 10,672 souls, of whom only 154 are in the town of the same name, the other refugees having found accommodation in the villages of the province.

(b) For the Government of Erivan the approximate figures are:—In the town 17,000, at Alexandropol 7,000, and in the villages of the province 76,000 refugees, or a total of 100,000.

(c) Besides the above, 29,000 Nestorian Christians and Armenians have taken refuge at Russian Djoulfa. They are reported to be natives of Salmas and the adjoining districts.

The total number of Armenian and Nestorian refugees in the Caucasus is therefore about 140,000 men, women and children. The above figures are, of course, only approximate and subject to correction.

As regards the refugees at Djoulfa, it was decided at a recent meeting, at which there was present the Nestorian Patriarch Mar Shimun, to open a central hospital for 50 beds at Diliman, another for 25 beds at Haftevan, and dispensaries in the neighbourhood of this latter village.

A sum of £5,000 had been sent to these refugees by the Viceroy of the Caucasus, and was calculated to suffice till the 18th December. A further sum of £10,000 a month is required to keep the refugees supplied with food, while other needs included £8,500 for the supply of beds and warm clothing, and £1,500 for the equipment and maintenance of the hospitals and dispensaries at Diliman and Haftevan. It is feared, however, that the above estimates for pressing needs at Djoulfa will have to be largely increased in the event of a further influx of refugees from Bashkala, an eventuality which is considered probable.

49. MEMORANDUM ON THE CONDITION OF ARMENIAN REFUGEES IN THE CAUCASUS: COMPILED IN THE BRITISH FOREIGN OFFICE FROM INFORMATION, DATED 29th DECEMBER, 1915, WHICH WAS FURNISHED BY MR. STEVENS, BRITISH CONSUL AT BATOUM.

Although the considerable sums that have recently been finding their way to Russia are being applied to the relief of Armenian refugees in the Caucasus, and the numerous consignments of clothing placed by various organisations at the disposal of the Relief Committees are being served out to them, the need of the refugees for further urgent help is reported to be still very great.

Prince Argoudinsky-Dolgoroukov, the Acting Representative of the Caucasian Section of the Urban Union, after having visited the refugee camps at Bambak and Delijan, furnishes the following report on his tour of inspection:—

Four thousand refugees are concentrated in the 26 villages which he visited in the districts named above, the more wealthy villages housing a greater number of fugitives than the less important ones. He found that, as a rule, two refugees are quartered in each house. In the whole of this district, excepting at Karakeliss, the refugees are everywhere gratuitously lodged. The same rations are issued to the refugees in all the villages; they consist of one-and-a-half pounds of flour and a cash allowance of five copecks (one penny) per diem per person. Children under two years old receive no rations or money allowance; they are, however, very few in number. Most of the children coming under this denomination have died from hunger, cold and the other fearful sufferings to which the refugees have been subjected since last summer.

At Karakeliss all dwellings are in satisfactory condition. In some of the villages fuel—mainly wood procured in the neighbouring forests—is served out to the refugees. In this district the latter possess about 1,000 head of cattle.

The exceedingly well organised Relief Committee of the Karakeliss Brotherhood is very attentive to the needs of the refugees. Their registration has been admirably arranged by this Committee. Full particulars of the refugees, and the relief received, are entered in the register book kept by the Committee. The latter has two representatives who periodically visit the refugee villages, attend to the issue of rations, and inquire into the urgent needs of the refugees and their other requirements. The Committee further endeavours to find work for the refugees.

The Committee has recently prepared two hundred stoves and a quantity of warm clothing for the refugees. They are daily furnished with boiling water and sugar. An unsatisfactory feature of relief work at Karakeliss is the difficulty experienced in receiving flour and money from Alexandropol. At times it takes twenty days to obtain them. Owing to the short cereal crop of 1915 in the district, no local flour is procurable; consequently the refugees frequently remain in a practically starving condition. The Prince Argoudinsky was surprised to find that no means had yet been devised by which the transport of flour and the transmission of money over so short a distance could be accelerated.

The Urban Union maintains a fairly well organised and equipped hospital for fifty beds at Karakeliss. This establishment, however, lacks an operating room, a mortuary and a disinfecting camera.

An orphanage managed by the Petrograd Armenian Committee has also been opened at Karakeliss. It accommodates 170 beds. The premises are good—well kept and clean. The children belonging to the orphanage are taught at the Church School at Karakeliss. They are all well dressed, but do not get sufficient food. This affects their outward appearance, and the orphans are consequently pale and somewhat emaciated. Prince Argoudinsky was informed that at times some of the children would wake up at night and search for remnants of bread left about during the day.

The Tairov Asylum for Orphans, maintained at the personal expense of Mrs. U.M. Tairov, impressed the Prince very favourably. The Orphanage is equipped for 25 orphans belonging to soldiers, and for 25 fatherless and motherless refugees. The children are well accommodated with plenty of room, in a fine and spacious building. They are made to work. They tidy up and clean the rooms, wash their own linen, wash up crockery, pans and utensils, lay the tables, assist in cooking and perform all other domestic work. They are taught to read and write, and also various trades. The children sing in Armenian and Russian to the accompaniment of a piano. They are well dressed and shod. Their robust and healthy appearance testifies to good conditions of life, and also points to the fact that Mrs. Tairov and the whole of the personnel of the establishment put a good deal of energy into their work, and are much concerned in the welfare of the children.

The conditions obtaining in the district of Kazakh are not so satisfactory as they are at Karakeliss. The need for methodical organisation in supervising relief work and introducing a defined plan of action is everywhere noticeable.

About 4,500 refugees are concentrated in this locality, viz.:—3,145 Armenians, 805 Nestorians and 550 Armenian orphans. The latter are accommodated in the Orphanage of Delijan.

Up to the 23rd November last, the above refugees were receiving a cash allowance of 10 copecks (2d.) per person per diem. On that date, however, this cash allowance was increased to 15 copecks (3d.) a day. Until the 20th November the Urban Union maintained feeding stations at the more important refugee centres, but, to the great disappointment of the refugees, these stations were then closed, and victualling was taken over by the police authorities and the village committees, which continue to perform these duties. The refugees here receive relief at the rate of 1 lb. 32 zol. (about one English lb.) of flour, and a cash allowance of 7 copecks (1¼d.) per diem per person. Fuel is not distributed to all the refugees. Some of the latter have had warm clothing, supplied by the Armenian Benevolent Society, served out to them; others have been furnished with iron stoves.

No special committee which could take over the management of relief work exists in this district. The Delijan Committee partly performs the duties which would devolve on such a body. No properly organised system of administering relief is provided. Very few individual refugees are unwilling to find employment. The invariable excuse put forward for refusing work is the absence of proper clothing for taking on open air work; also, that no food is procurable where work is offering, in consequence of which the refugees have to starve. Up to the 2nd December, the refugees were supplied with tea and sugar by the Urban Union. For some unknown reason, this allowance has recently been discontinued.

Hospital arrangements are good in this district. The hospital is maintained out of funds supplied by the Urban Union.

The ground floor of a wing of an unoccupied barrack building has been adapted to accommodate refugees. The building, although spacious, is gloomy and dark, and is exceedingly badly ventilated. The upper floor is temporarily occupied by 123 orphans, who are cared for by the Armenian Central Committee. The children go about barefoot.

At Delijan four asylums for children exist. Prince Argoudinsky was only able to visit one of these establishments. The one inspected by him is managed by Princess Toumanov, and is maintained out of funds furnished by the Armenian Benevolent Society. After their dinners, the children go to school. They look strong and healthy, and their appearance shows care and kind treatment in every respect. According to information obtained by Prince Argoudinsky, the other three asylums at Delijan are likewise well managed and kept.

The relief extended to the refugees at Delijan is only of a primitive nature; the same remark cannot, however, be applied to the unsatisfactory conditions obtaining in this connection in the district of Kazakh. Here the question of housing the refugees is one of the most painful features of the relief work undertaken. In a large number of villages in this district, the refugees are mostly accommodated in derelict sheds and shops—dark, unheated and overcrowded. For some unaccountable reason warm clothing has not been issued to them. They do not receive their rations of flour and cash allowances with regularity, and no Central Organisation to inquire into their immediate and urgent needs exists on the spot.

The Bakou Refugee Committee has just forwarded several further consignments of 10,000 quilts, 12,000 mattresses and sacks, 12,000 pillow cases, 600 jackets, 3,000 shirts, 3,000 pairs of drawers; and the Tiflis Committee, 400 quilts, 4,000 mattresses, 4,000 pillow cases, 200 jackets, 1,000 shirts and 1,000 pairs of drawers, to the Governors of Elizavetpol and Erivan, to be served out to the refugees. The latter Committee has also sent several bales of clothing to Persia and to Turkish Asia Minor for the refugees, but according to the newspapers a large proportion of the fugitives are still in utmost poverty—destitute, to a very great extent, of the absolute necessities of existence.

Seventy-six railway truck loads of flour, of which 53 were for the needs of the Armenian Refugees in the Government of Erivan and 23 for the use of those in the Government of Elizavetpol, left Gulevich in the Northern Caucasus a few days ago. These trucks, under ordinary conditions, should already have reached their respective destinations.

Owing to anticipated heavy snow drifts at the Akhta Pass (Kars-Karakeliss direction), the Zemstvo Union gave orders a few days ago that all its refugee victualling and provisioning stations should be moved to Igdir.

According to information obtained by Mr. Sarebey, the Dragoman of the Vice-Consulate at Van, from the Armenian Bishop of Erivan and from various other data he has been able to procure on the spot, the number of Armenian refugees in the Caucasus is 173,038, of whom 105,000 are from the Province of Van; 48,000 from the districts of Alashkerd, Bayazid and Passin; and 20,038 from Moush, Boulanik, &c., &c.

They are housed as follows:—

Government of Erivan:—

Town of Erivan 18,820

Villages in the neighbourhood of Erivan 14,680

Market town of Vaharshapat 5,360

Villages of the district of same name 22,730

Town of Nahichevan 271

District of Nahichevan 468

Igdir 1,028

Surmalin 7,342

Town of Alexandropol 8,450

Villages in the neighbourhood of Alexandropol 14,121

Sharori 268

Town of Novo-Bayazid 1,164

Villages of Novo-Bayazid district 10,336

——— 105,038

Government of Elizavetpol:—

Town of Elizavetpol 12,000

Villages, district of Elizavetpol 5,000

District of Karabagh 1,000

——— 18,000

Province of Kars:—

Town of Kars and adjacent villages 26,000

Karakeliss 4,000

——— 30,000

Government of Tiflis:—

City of Tiflis 5,000

Villages of the district of Tiflis 3,000

——— 8,000

Northern Caucasus (probably the Armenian town of 12,000 Nahichevan-on-Don)

———

Grand total 173,038

———

The number of refugees in the Caucasus from Khoi and Salmas is small, about 1,000. They are housed principally at Nahichevan and a few at Erivan.

The foregoing figures differ from those obtained from an official source, which put the number of refugees in the Caucasus, in round figures, at 140,000. The data now procured by Sarebey, who is on the spot, originating as they do from Armenian sources and being in greater detail, are likely to be more correct than the information then furnished.

Reports received through the newspapers from Colonel Termen state that the situation at Van has recently improved. It would appear that 6,000 refugees have returned to the town, which has been subdivided into four police districts. Strict measures to prevent further pillage and destruction of property have been introduced at Van. Ordinary necessaries of life are procurable, although only in very small quantities. Some threshing machines and four or five flour mills have resumed work in the district, with the result that several bakeries have reopened.

All persons, organisations and other bodies in the Caucasus and elsewhere that have Armenian orphans from Van and its district in their care, have been requested to furnish particulars to the Governor of Van in regard to the names, ages, parentage and native places of the orphans in their charge. Also, where possible, information is asked for as to any property their deceased parents may have possessed, in order to enable the authorities to institute a search for, and appoint guardians to protect, such property.

The spread of disease has been stayed. The town has assumed a cleaner and more orderly appearance. In some streets the restoration of buildings has been commenced. Ten or twelve shops and stores have resumed trade.

The Armenian newspaper Horizon states that the news from Salmas is very unsatisfactory. Bishop Nerses’ urgent appeal for warm clothing has hitherto remained unheeded. Only a small quantity of clothing forwarded by the Tabriz Women’s Committee has reached him, but the articles sent are like a drop in the ocean. The cold is excessive.

50. REPORT ON THE ACTIVITY OF ARMENIAN REFUGEE RELIEF ORGANISATIONS IN THE CAUCASUS AND TURKISH ARMENIA; ENCLOSED IN A DESPATCH (NO. 1), DATED BATOUM, 3rd JANUARY, 1916, FROM MR. CONSUL STEVENS TO THE BRITISH FOREIGN OFFICE.

The Armenian organisations in the Caucasus which have been so active in relieving Christian refugees since the first arrival of the latter in this country in the early days of July last, still continue their good work.

The number of victims of the war who took refuge in the Caucasus from Turkish Armenia and Persia, in roughly estimated figures, is 150,000. The influx of refugees, however, continued for some time after July. There is, therefore, good reason to believe that the number of refugees who crossed the Russian border was in excess of the figures quoted above.

The refugees for the most part settled in the Government of Erivan, and principally at and about the town of Etchmiadzin. Housing accommodation for such large numbers could not here be provided, and the refugees, in the circumstances, had to be accommodated without cover in yards and open spaces, in the neighbourhood of the Monastery of Etchmiadzin.

Daily telegrams from Etchmiadzin to the Principal Relief Committee at Tiflis depicted a truly painful situation, and reported that from 350 to 400 deaths were daily taking place, owing to the destitute and starving conditions that prevailed amongst the refugees.

At this time relief work was in the hands partly of the “Chief Caucasian Committee for Succouring Victims of the War,” and partly in those of the Red Cross Society. Shortly after, several other public bodies joined in relief work.

The combined efforts of these various organisations had little effect in improving the situation. The funds at their respective disposals were small, and quite out of proportion to the enormous numbers of the refugees, whose ranks kept on swelling, especially after the heavy fighting that took place last summer on the Caucasian front.

Meanwhile the insanitary condition of the refugees, in view of the very hot weather, was daily becoming more and more appalling. Dysentery, spotted fever, typhoid, measles, diphtheria, and subsequently cholera, all of which were assuming epidemic form, were thinning the numbers of the refugees at a very rapid rate; and yet, despite this alarming situation, the funds necessary to cope successfully with the deplorable conditions were not forthcoming.

Finally, the Caucasian Section of the All Russia Urban Union, after a hurried investigation of matters, prepared a rough estimate of the money needed for the immediate relief of the refugees, and a grant of Rs. 1,103,250 (£110,325 about) was asked for by the Section from its Principal Organisation. This money was shortly afterwards remitted to the Caucasus, and the urgent needs of the hordes of refugees were then and there met. The temporary measures of relief adopted gave the Caucasian organisations a short time to think matters over, and to decide on further action in connection with relief work.

Accordingly, steps were taken to bring the pressing needs of the refugees before the public, and, in response to appeals made throughout the Caucasus, in Russia and abroad, moneys were collected privately; the Russian Government contributed important sums, and latterly funds have been flowing in from the United Kingdom and America. With these moneys relief work is being extended on a wider scale, and the requirements of the refugees are being more closely attended to; but the needs of the fugitives are still very great, and more and more moneys are required.

The necessity for substantial additional sums is, to a great extent, due to a new series of tasks the Urban Union has taken upon itself to carry out, together with the heavy responsibilities it has had to accept in connection with refugee relief work outside the confines of the Caucasus.

A comparatively large number of refugees have latterly been returning to their homes, and the Djoulfa-Van and Igdir-Van roads have had to be placed under the immediate supervision of the Caucasian Section of the Urban Union. A number of kitchen and housing stations have had to be opened at various points on these two routes, which the Union will have to maintain at its own expense for a considerable period, in view of the increasing tendency among the refugees to return home, in reliance upon the restoration of security in their own country.

The organisation of the kitchen and housing stations in the Djoulfa-Van direction is reported to be proceeding apace under the guidance of the Representative of the Caucasian Committee of the Urban Union, and the work is being carried out in complete harmony with, and according to the directions and indications of, the military authorities.

The Urban Union has also undertaken to equip and open a hospital for 200 beds for refugees at Van, which it will also maintain at its own expense.

The duties of the Urban Union do not end here, for it has been called upon by the Viceregal authority to perform many other functions connected with refugee relief work; the difficulties they present have to be faced with as much energy and resource as all the other duties taken over by this body.

The following is a list of the medical and kitchen stations which have been opened by the Union and are at present serving the needs of the refugees in the areas mentioned above:—

I. HOSPITALS. 1. At points at which the refugees originally settled.

(a) At Etchmiadzin.—A hospital consisting of several buildings belonging to the Monastery and to its Academy, which have been temporarily adapted to accommodate 570 beds for patients of both sexes and for children.

A cholera ward, No. 5, in which, owing to the disappearance of the disease, no cases are at present under treatment. The vacant beds of this ward (70) are now being used for cases of spotted fever.

A flying medical column (consisting of a medical officer, his assistant and several competent attendants) has been provisionally formed to attend to those sick refugees who are within the limits of Monastery territory.

Three miles distant from the Monastery, on the road to the railway station of Etchmiadzin, a medical quarantine station has been established. At this point healthy refugees are subjected to a quarantine of four to five days, before they are allowed to proceed to the station for the purpose of entraining en route to the Government of Elizavetpol. On their journey, the refugees are accompanied by a medical officer and two professional assistants.

(b) At Igdir.—A hospital, in temporarily occupied buildings, accommodating 100 beds; and, three and a half miles from this point, at a village named Plour, a hospital for 50 beds.

(c) At Erivan.—A hospital, in private houses provisionally rented, which provides 200 beds. A quarantine station of a temporary type has also been opened in connection with this hospital. Two assistant medical officers are placed in charge of the latter establishment, and they accompany refugees by rail to their places of settlement in the Government of Elizavetpol.

(d) At Alexandropol.—A hospital, in premises rented temporarily, accommodating 200 beds to which an isolation section has been added.

Within the limits of the district of Elizavetpol several stations have been established with assistant medical officers in charge.

2. Along the refugees’ line of advance.

(a) Nijni-Akhti.—A hospital for 50 beds.

Assistant medical officers’ stations at Elenovka and Tchibouhli.

(b) Delijan.—A hospital for 50 beds.

3. In places where refugees have more or less settled.

(a) Novo-Bayazid (Erivan).—A hospital for 50 beds.

(b) Annenfeld.—A hospital for 80 beds.

(c) Kedabek.—A hospital for 50 beds.

The total number of beds provided—including the 70 belonging to the cholera ward at Etchmiadzin—is 1,450.

NOTE: Funds furnished by the Urban Union are at present being employed for adapting a building—ceded to the Military by the Katholikos—to the needs of the refugees.

II. KITCHEN STATIONS. 1. On the railway lines used by refugees.

At the quarantine station near Etchmiadzin and at the stations of Aghtalia and Annenfeld.

2. On the metalled roads (chaussées) used by refugees.

At Parakar, Erivan, Novo-Nikolaievka, Ailar, Suhoi Fontan, Nijni-Akhti, Elenovka, Tchibouhli, Delijan, Tarsa-Tchai, Karavan-sarai and Uzuntal.

Bread and hot food are served out to the refugees at these stations. The refugees are quartered during their stay at these points in sheds rented for the purpose which are properly roofed.

A separate kitchen station has been opened at Djoulfa out of funds—Rs. 10,000 (£1,000)—placed by the Urban Union at the disposal of Bishop Nerses, for the use of Nestorian refugees.

III.

With a view to improving the insanitary conditions obtaining in the refugee settlements, and also the hygiene of the refugees:

1. Three disinfecting stations have been opened.

The first of these is now operating at Etchmiadzin. The station undertakes to disinfect cemeteries, refuse-dumping grounds, hospitals (in the event of infectious disease), and premises of every other type, and to operate the disinfecting camera.

The officials of the station perform their duties under the guidance of a sanitary medical officer.

The second station is at Igdir, and the third at Erivan.

The duties of the latter two stations are identical with those of the first-named station, and each is worked by a similar personnel.

2. Detachment for erecting buildings.

This detachment has to attend to the building of bath and wash (laundry) houses of a provisional type in the refugee settlements. It consists of a chief, two assistants, an instructor, two stove-building masons (petchniks), two fitters, a tin smith, and two rough carpenters.

The detachment has erected a bath-house (Turkish) and laundry at Annenfeld, a similar bath-house at Tchibouhli, and a Turkish bath and laundry at Kedabek.

New work of the same description is in immediate prospect for the detachment at Delijan, Elenovka, Nijni-Akhti, Igdir, Etchmiadzin and its neighbourhood, and at Alexandropol. The detachment has also been ordered to take in hand work connected with the erection of a series of steam-formaline disinfecting cameras. A camera of this type is in course of construction at Erivan.

3. Under-garments and warm clothing have been served out in various places to the refugees. Wearing apparel, as stated above, was purchased at a cost of Rs. 66,000 (£6,600), out of moneys contributed by a number of organisations and individuals; and warm clothing costing Rs. 11,996 (£1,200), assigned by the Principal Committee of the Urban Union, has also recently been distributed to the refugees.

Apart from the more or less completed organisation of relief work described above, necessity has compelled the Urban Union to take over relief work in Persian territory, and a hospital for 110 beds is under equipment at Salmas.

Further duties connected with the relief of the refugees will shortly be taken over by the Urban Union, when it is proposed to open small hospitals and dispensaries in all refugee settlements.

It is estimated that between 11,000 and 12,000 refugees have returned to the valley of Alashkerd and to the Vilayet of Van, and that from 2,000 to 3,000 refugees belonging to the middle classes have settled in the Governments of Tiflis and Bakou.

The cost to the Union of feeding the refugees is estimated at between 18 and 19 copecks (4d.) per head per day.

The following are the rations issued to the refugees:—

Bread, 108 lbs. Rs. 7·20 } Meat, 20 lbs. ” 3·00 } Rice, 10 lbs. ” 1·20 } Potatoes, onions, salt, pepper ” 0·60 } Rs. 18·08 per 100 Fuel (wood, peat or coal) ” 1·70 } refugees per diem, Tea, ⅛ lb. ” 0·25 } or 18·08 copecks Sugar, 4½ lbs. ” 1·13 } per head. Rental for accommodation ” 1·00 } Administrative expenses ” 2·00 }

The Government ration is 1½ lbs. per person per day, or an allowance in cash, in lieu of rations, at the rate of 15 copecks a day or Rs. 4·50 per month. The Government method of sending provisions to points of distribution is, however, very erratic. Owing to the lack of railway facilities and to delays in remitting moneys by the Principal Committee, the refugees dependent on relief from this source have frequently to go without their bread for days and at times for weeks.

The following is a list of other organisations engaged in relief work in this country:—

The Etchmiadzin Brotherhood; The Tiflis Armenian Central Committee; The Moscow Armenian Red Cross Committee; The Russian Red Cross Society; and The Communes of the various villages in which the refugees have settled.

The Etchmiadzin Brotherhood, under the chairmanship of the Katholikos, maintains branches of its organisation at Igdir, Erivan, Alexandropol, Kars, Nahichevan, Novo-Bayazid, and Karakeliss. Relief work was undertaken by the Brotherhood in March, 1915. Since that date, apart from the large quantities of clothing, medicines and other comforts served out to the refugees, a medical detachment has been organised at Igdir, and, in all, the Brotherhood has spent Rs. 900,000 (£90,000) in relief work. This, in the main, has been obtained by voluntary contribution from persons of Armenian nationality all over the world, but especially in the Russian Empire (at Petrograd, Moscow, Kharkov, &c.). The Brotherhood serves out with punctual regularity flour rations, money allowances, and clothing to the refugees. It has all along maintained kitchens at Igdir, Etchmiadzin, and Alexandropol, as well as hospitals in various places; has organised a proper system of medical aid; and has opened refugee orphanages, schools and workshops for the children. In short, the organisation is thorough, and this is one of the most important relief societies engaged in work in the Armenian refugee pale.

The Tiflis Armenian Central Committee has also been carrying out relief work for nearly ten months. This body maintains its own hospitals and kitchens, and hitherto has expended Rs. 200,000 (£20,000) in connection with the relief of Armenian refugees settled in the Government of Erivan. The necessary funds are raised by voluntary contributions collected from members belonging to Armenian society in the Caucasus.

The Moscow Armenian Committee of the Red Cross.—The relief work of this organisation is confined to the Government of Erivan. The Committee commenced operations in April last, when four medical and kitchen stations (viz. at Etchmiadzin and at the villages of Markar, Ashtarak, and Arzap) were opened. A staff consisting of a medical officer, two assistants, and several competent attendants and nurses, besides several sanitary officers and other employees, is appointed to each of these stations. The organisation affords relief when and as urgent occasion requires. This Committee has spent Rs. 300,000 (£30,000), all of which has been contributed by the Armenian colony at Moscow. An orphanage is maintained by the Committee at Ashtar, together with a school and workshop. The organisation likewise keeps a flour store and stocks of other provisions at the last-mentioned place. Refugees are fed by the Society at Markar and at eight other villages situate in the valley of Alashkerd. The above remarks apply only to the more important duties that devolve on the Committee, but it also attends to the needs of the refugees in many other ways. A hospital at Arzap is also maintained by the Committee.

In August, 1915, The All Russia Red Cross Society entered the field of refugee work by opening a medical observation point at Igdir. The staff here consists of a superintendent, a medical officer, two assistants, and 19 sanitary officers. In September last, alone, this body served out 18,598 dinners and 16,775 portions of tea, and rendered medical aid to 4,652 refugees. In October, 1915, the Red Cross Society daily fed from 850 to 900 refugees in the district of Igdir. The stations of this Society are well organised, the staffs strictly disciplined, and their work is effected with neatness and punctuality. The Society maintains a dispensary and victualling store at Igdir. The estimated cost of the dinners and tea served out to the refugees by the Society is between 17 and 18 copecks (3d.) a day per head.

The Village Communes.—The peasants of each of the villages in which refugees have been settled have undertaken to accommodate them, gratuitously, in their houses. In these the refugees find warm shelter, and are not infrequently fed as well out of the slender resources at the disposal of their hosts. Whilst seemingly unimportant, the relief extended to the refugees by the peasantry is of the greatest value. An accurate idea of this benevolence can only be formed when all the good deeds of the peasantry are taken into consideration. Undoubtedly, this aid relieves the contributory public from responsibilities amounting to several hundreds of thousands of roubles. In other words, the charitable disposition of the by no means affluent peasant effects an enormous saving of money, which under other conditions would have to be provided by the various organisations.

On the recommendation of Prince A.M. Argoudinsky-Dolgoroukov, who has recently been on a tour of inspection through the refugee districts, it has been decided to improve the work of relief by adopting the following measures:—

1. That the present accommodation at the hospital at Annenfeld be increased by an additional 30 beds. That the bath-houses in course of construction at Barsoun and Kedabek be forthwith completed, and a bath-house built at Tchardahli.

2. That a medical officer, two assistant doctors and two nurses, as well as another assistant medical officer and three nurses for the 30 additional beds, be immediately appointed to the hospital at Annenfeld. That all equipment required for the additional 30 beds at this hospital, and the necessary undergarments and clothing for outgoing patients, be at once supplied.

3. That should a further evacuation of refugees from Erivan to the Government of Elizavetpol be ordered by the authorities, additional warm and roofed-in buildings should be rented at Annenfeld and Evlakh, and be furnished with some comfort for the refugees, even if only of a very primitive nature.

4. That kitchens for refugees on the move be opened at Annenfeld, Evlakh, and Elizavetpol.

5. That small hospitals be opened at the village of Tchaikent in the district of Elizavetpol, and one each in the districts of Djevanshir and Shousha.

6. That movable sanitary detachments and kitchens be organised in the refugees’ districts of settlement.

7. That permanent dispensing stations be established in the colony of Annenfeld and at the railway station of Evlakh.

8. That the question of the restrictions in force at Elizavetpol and on the road leading through Annenfeld regarding the passage of refugees, be at once brought before the notice of the competent authorities.

9. That the cash allowance to refugees in the Government of Elizavetpol be brought up to 15 copecks per day per head.

10. That the authorities whom it may concern be requested, when settling refugees on new lands, to take into consideration the previous conditions of life of such refugees, and allot to those coming from highland districts identical localities in this country, and vice versa in regard to refugees who have been inhabitants of lowland districts. Further, that in defining the number of refugees to be temporarily domiciled in villages, the degree of prosperity or poverty of the villages be taken into consideration.

11. That warm clothing, blankets, bast-shoe leather, iron stoves, kerosene and (if possible) tea, sugar and soap, if only in small quantities, be immediately served out to the refugees.

12. That the question of the supply of fuel to the refugees be brought to the notice of the forestry authorities of the Caucasus.

13. That the question of the supply of flour to the refugees through the Central Organ, and of the accumulation of stocks of the same commodity in villages or groups of villages for the winter, be forthwith decided.

14. That local administrative offices be requested to give the Committee timely notice of the dates and hours of dispatch of trains conveying refugees.

15. That the Caucasian Principal Committee be requested to entrust the Urban Union with the task of feeding refugees on the spot. Should this prove impossible, to ask that steps be taken to introduce modifications in the present system of distributing food.

16. That a representative of the Committee be appointed to each of the localities where refugees have been settled, in order that these representatives may communicate to the Committee when there is urgent need of relief in any given locality.

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51. REFUGEES IN THE CAUCASUS: LETTER DATED ERIVAN, 29th DECEMBER, 1915, FROM REV. S.G. WILSON TO DR. SAMUEL T. DUTTON, SECRETARY OF THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

We have just returned from a tour of some of the Armenian villages where refugees are living, and are ready to report on their condition from personal observation. In this district or Governorship of Erivan there are 105,000 Armenian refugees, besides Nestorians and Yezidis. Of these, 18,000 are in the town of Erivan; of these, again, many are scattered in the homes of the people and others gathered in large buildings, orphanages, etc. We visited the barracks where 420 were living. Room after room was full—in some rooms 40, in some half the number. The lucky ones were those that had a plank platform or board floor on which to sleep and sit. Many of them were in the kitchens and store-rooms on the bare ground. Most of them had insufficient bedding, and many of them scarcely any. Some were lying four under one coverlet, head to feet. One man told us how he sat and shivered in the night till his teeth chattered. Another man stayed in bed during the daytime because he had no clothes. One room contained, among others, two Protestant families from Van; the fathers had both died lately of disease, the mother of one group was lying sick. Seven or eight was the number of each household, lying in rags on hay and with scarcely enough cover for two people. The atmosphere of the rooms was foul in the extreme. These people were from the city of Van and had lived comfortably.

The condition in the villages is even worse. At Somaghar, 15 miles from here, we were taken about by the elder of the Protestant Church. Sad indeed were the sights that we saw. Some, too, were comforting in a measure. This good man had taken into his household, already of sufficient size, two women refugees, who were clothed cleanly and neatly and fed as his own. Many of the Armenian villagers have taken in and cared for the destitute refugees. Others have given them the use of their spare rooms, bake-houses, stables and barns. Fortunate are those who are in the bake-houses, for the heat in bread baking is a free gift to them, albeit mixed with smoke. Fortunate, too, those who have stables, for they have steam-heat from the oxen and buffaloes; for those in the other store-rooms and out-houses have no stoves or fires. These uplands of Armenia have a severe winter. The ground is now covered with snow. Ararat, with its two grand peaks, is always in sight, and but a few miles away. Cold winds from the Caucasus range blow over the plain. The sight of these multitudes with neither clothing for day nor bedding for night is a great draft on our sympathies, and this is intensified by their pitiful stories. We entered one bake-house. One young man appeared among 15 women and children. They had been a prosperous patriarchal family of 36 persons—father, three sons and their wives and children. Of these, 21 were killed, including all the men except this young fellow, who threw himself into the arms of a Kurd and was saved in some freak of mercy. This was a Protestant family from a village called Perkhous. We saw families of 13 and 16—mothers, daughters, brides and children—with no man among them. We asked: “Where are your men?”—“They were all killed;” or, “Out of 70 men but one escaped;” or, “We were 100 men in the village, but only 20 escaped;” or, “There were 450 households in our village, but 20 or 30 men alone escaped.”—“Were the women taken away?”—“Yes, our pretty girls were carried off.”—“How many?”—“Four out of nine; we too were stripped naked.” As to the rest of their sufferings and outrage, they were silent.

We addressed the one surviving man and asked: “How are you here?” He replied: “I was off as a soldier in the Turkish army. I heard of the massacres, and by bye-ways through the mountains I returned to find our village destroyed. I escaped to Russia and found them here.” Another woman, from Ardjish, near Van, said: “All our men were collected from the bazaars and taken before the Government. After dark, we heard the shots which killed them. We fled in the night.”

In the village of Kourpalou, with 300 houses, there are 900 refugees. Of these, 300 are from the first exodus of January to April, 1915, and 600 from the second in July and August. The first were able to bring with them some of their property; many of the men came safely. The second was the terrible flight after the massacres; of these, 40,000 are said to have died of disease after reaching Russian territory. The condition of the later refugees is most heart-rending. Let me give a few glances at conditions in Kourpalou. A woman surrounded by seven or eight persons, with scarcely beds for all, and rags as their clothes, said: “I escaped by throwing myself in the mud, a dead child lying over my head. There were 50 in our household. Nine women and boys were taken captive by the Kurds.” In a stable the oxen and buffaloes were crowding up close; at their side a flock of sheep was huddled; the air was stifling. Three families of 18 persons were crowded at one end, in a space so small that it seemed impossible for them to lie down. Some had improvised a couch in the manger. A hammock for a baby was stretched above on two posts. Of these 18, a blind youth was the only man. In the bake-house were 27 persons, one youth, one very old man. Six men of their household had been taken as soldiers, the rest were massacred. Of the 600 refugees of the second exodus who are in this village, about 30 are men. Some are escaped soldiers who were in the army when the atrocities occurred. One had dragged himself out from under a mass of dead bodies.

Nor did all the women escape death. Women were wantonly slain; those with child ripped up with swords; the breasts of others cut off. Some threw themselves and their children into the streams and over the precipices to escape outrage. One woman lately arrived who was captured some years ago by a Kurd. She had escaped now. after killing the Kurd, and brought her two children with her.

Mouandjik.—Also many refugees. As in all other places, great lack of clothing and especially of bedding. Twenty-two persons in one room, two of them men. Mostly sleeping on the ground, with bedding enough for one-fifth of their number. In another room 10 persons, no men, 15 of this connection killed, girls carried away, one boy saved by hiding under skirt of mother; clothes in tatters, bedding lacking.

Veri Ailaulou.—This village of 70 houses is sheltering 370 refugees, in wretched condition. Three families of 22 persons are in one bake-house, one side of which is filled with dried manure. Their village in Turkey had 70 men, one escaped alive; 4 girls and 3 brides carried off. Another hut contains 4 women and some children, the remnant of a family of 24. All the men of their village were killed. They are living in a wretched condition. Bread and water have been the chief food of these refugees for months past.

We are doing what we can to relieve this distress, supplementing the work of local and Government committees. Ready-made clothing in any large quantity is not to be found, nor blankets. Comforters we have purchased in small quantities. We are organising some sewing circles and will contract for clothing in Tiflis, where we succeeded in buying about 7,000 garments. They are hard to find, and transport is difficult when they are ready, as the army has the first right to the trucks.

I have not time to tell you of our reception by the Grand Duke Nicolas and his good wishes for the success and progress of our relief work, nor of our visit to the Katholikos at Etchmiadzin and his warm thanks for the sympathy and help of the American people for his people in their distress. We were entertained by him over-night. Governors, Bishops and Press have all bidden us God-speed.

Warm clothing and bedding will save many from sickness and death. The pitiable condition of these wretched people should appeal strongly to our American people in their comfortable homes and in the enjoyment of ten thousand blessings.

After organising relief committees here in several places, one or both of us will return to Tiflis for supplies of clothing and bedding.

52. REPATRIATION OF REFUGEES: LETTER, DATED ERIVAN (?), MARCH, 1916, FROM THE REV. S.G. WILSON; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

Events have moved rapidly since I sent my appeal of the 18th February. In the intervening month the Russian army has made splendid progress and driven the Turks back many miles beyond Erzeroum and Van. The capture of Bitlis, Moush and Mamahatoun (Derdjan) has given assurance to the Government, to the Armenians and to us all. The return of the refugees to the Van province has been officially authorized. Men are hastening back even while the snow is on the ground. The 12,000 already there will soon be 20,000 and 30,000. Reports say: “Men are going in large numbers.”—“Every day caravans of those returning to the fatherland enter,” via Igdir. Most of these have returned from the Erivan province to Van. Others, of whom 500 are women, have settled in Alashkerd. Fifty-three hundred have gone back from Russian Passin to the Turkish province of the same name. The Governor of Kars reports that from Olti and that region refugees are returning to the districts of Erzeroum, and that many of them are women and children. In Bashkala there are nearly 3,000 refugees, said to be in great wretchedness and in need of daily sustenance.

Besides these, numbers are coming forth from their places of concealment, or from the houses of certain friendly Kurds, or from their captivity in Moslem harems. These are indeed but hundreds compared with the thousands who have been massacred or driven into the wildernesses. But it is a gratification to hear that from Sassoun 160 men came forth; that in Khnyss there have appeared more than a thousand new refugees; that in Riza on the Black Sea more than 200 Armenian children were discovered after the taking of the town by the Russians; that in Bitlis men, women and children have come forth in large numbers (2,800); that in Moush nearly 3,000 souls have been freed. Erzeroum seems to have been dealt with most savagely. Less than 200 Armenians out of 20,000 in the city itself escaped death or deportation, that is, exile. Of these, thirty were saved in the house of Mr. Stapleton. The Armenians report that when the Moslems came and demanded that these girls should be delivered over to them, Mr. Stapleton replied: “You must kill me before you can touch them.” Recent reports say that in the villages round Erzeroum Armenian women and children are appearing, singly and in groups, and are in the greatest need. Whose heart is not moved with pity for and desire to preserve these remnants who have escaped from the greatest destruction! Our opportunity is a wonderful one—to save the remnant, to aid in the restoration, to prepare for the return of the 200,000 fugitives now in Persia and the Caucasus.

Our call to help is both general and specific. A specific and unusual call has reached us from the Russian Governor of Van, Mr. Alfred Teremin.

Now we have telegraphed to the Governor that we are coming, as we telegraph to the American Committee of our entrance upon the new work. Fortunately we have a considerable balance on hand, and we are going in the faith that America will support us generously. Large funds will be necessary, to put roofs over the heads of the people, to supply seed-corn, ploughs, oxen, carts, etc.; to set at work carpenters, blacksmiths and other artisans; to help the most needy till harvest time. We shall buy the necessary things here or in Persia or from the Kurds, and will do our part in assisting the returning exiles to cultivate their fields, so that harvest may be abundant. Fortunately the time of spring sowing in the highlands of Armenia does not close till June, so we have yet time. A letter from Van says: “The important thing is that material help should be received quickly. If delayed, it will lose half its value. It is necessary to hasten. Every day is precious.”

VI. VILAYET OF ERZEROUM.

The Vilayet of Erzeroum lies due north of Bitlis and Van, and is likewise a border province. It consists principally of the upper valleys of the Kara-Su (Western Euphrates) and the Tchorok. The fortress-city of Erzeroum itself is situated in a plain which collects the head-waters of the former river; Erzindjan, a place of almost equal importance, lies further west, about 120 miles down stream; while Baibourt, in the Tchorok valley, is the most important place on the high road from Erzeroum to Trebizond. The districts north of the Kara-Su are as civilised as the rest of Anatolia; but south of the river, in the great peninsula enclosed by the two arms of the Euphrates, lies the mountain-mass of Dersim, inhabited by wild, independent tribes of Kizil-Bashis and Kurds, who played an active part in the destruction of their Armenian neighbours.

In the Vilayet of Erzeroum the deportations began at the end of May and during the first days of June. Reports from a particularly trustworthy source state that, by the 19th May, more than 15,000 Armenians had been deported from Erzeroum and the neighbouring villages, and that, by the 25th May, the districts of Erzindjan, Keghi and Baibourt had also been “devastated by forced emigration.” Our information concerning Erzeroum itself was at first somewhat scanty, but since its capture by the Russians it has been visited by representatives of various relief organisations in the Caucasus, who have obtained circumstantial accounts of what happened in the city and the surrounding villages. They report that, out of an Armenian population estimated at 400,000[65] souls for the Vilayets of Erzeroum and Bitlis, not more than 8,000-10,000 have survived,—in other words, that 98 per cent. of the Armenians in these vilayets have been either deported or massacred.

We are also particularly well informed with regard to Baibourt and Erzindjan, and the documents in this section may be noted as a clear case in which independent testimonies exactly bear one another out.

-----

Footnote 65:

The author of Doc. 57 estimates them at 300,000 only; but consult Annexe D. to the “Historical Summary.”

53. ERZEROUM: RECORD[66] OF AN INTERVIEW BETWEEN THE REV. H.J. BUXTON AND THE REV. ROBERT STAPLETON, A MISSIONARY OF THE AMERICAN BOARD, RESIDENT AT ERZEROUM FROM BEFORE THE OUTBREAK OF WAR UNTIL AFTER THE CAPTURE OF THE CITY BY THE RUSSIANS.[67]

Up to 1914 the population of Erzeroum was between 60,000 and 70,000, of whom 20,000 were Armenians.

In 1914 Tahsin Bey was Vali of Erzeroum (whom Mr. H.J. Buxton had met, as Vali of Van, in 1913).

On the outbreak of war with Turkey (November, 1914) the British Consul, Mr. Monahan, received his passport; the Russian Consul was ejected; the French Consul was absent. All their servants and interpreters were Armenians; these were ejected likewise, and were sent to Kaisaria as prisoners. The three Armenian servants of the Russian Military Attaché were hanged. The wife of one of these was sitting up, knitting socks and putting things together for her husband’s departure, when news came to her, early in the morning, that he was hanging on the scaffold.

In the spring of 1915 Passelt Pasha was Military Commandant of Erzeroum, and he suggested that all Armenian soldiers should be disarmed, withdrawn from combatant service and put on road gangs (yol tabour). These were men who had been conscripted, and, owing to the friendly relations between Turks and Armenians in this district (for the past ten years), had joined readily.

Teachers in the schools were first of all put into hospitals to do the work of dressers and nurses among the wounded. They were men with a good education, and did their work with intelligence. Then came the order that they were to be put on to the road gang, and they were replaced by totally incompetent men, so the soldiers had very poor attention in the hospital.

All through this period, up to May, 1915, military service could be avoided by men of all races and parties upon payment of an exemption tax of £40 (Turkish).

Even Turks themselves obtained exemption on these terms, and for a period (of, say, twelve months) the terms were faithfully observed; but, of course, eventually the need for soldiers made the authorities come down even upon exempted persons. In any case, this exemption only applied to military duties, and afforded no shelter to Armenians in the final crisis.

Stapleton managed to get one Armenian exempted by the payment of this tax.

19th May, 1915.

There was a massacre in the country round Khnyss. As the Russians advanced from the east a large number of Kurds fled in front of them, bent on vengeance, and carried out a raid on the peasantry which was quite distinct from the organised massacres later on.

Some of Stapleton’s teachers, boy and girl students, were at Khnyss on holiday, and perished in this massacre.

6th June.

The inhabitants of the one hundred villages in the plain of Erzeroum were sent away by order of the Government at two hours’ notice. The number of these must have been between 10,000 and 15,000. Of this number very few returned, and very few reached Erzindjan. A few took refuge with friendly Kurds (Kizilbashis), but all the rest must have been killed.

They were escorted by gendarmes, but the people responsible for the massacres would probably be chettis or Hamidia.

One of the Kurds was charged in court for murder, pillage and rapine, and he thereupon produced a paper and laid it before them, saying: “These are my orders for doing it.”

It is not certain who gave these orders, but the presumption is that they originated with the Government at Constantinople.

About this time definite orders arrived, by which Tahsin Bey was instructed that all Armenians should be killed. Tahsin refused to carry this out, and, indeed, all through this time he was reluctant to maltreat the Armenians, but was overruled by force majeure.

On the 9th June

he issued an order that the whole civic population were to leave Erzeroum, and many Turks and Greeks actually did leave (the latter being hustled out).

The German Consul was now aware of what was coming, and wired protests to his Ambassador; but he was told to remain quiet, as the Germans could not interfere with the internal affairs of Turkey.

This is what he said to Stapleton, and his goodwill is borne out by his evident intention to help the Armenians. It is an established fact that, in the days following, he used to send bread tied up in large sacks to the refugees outside the city, conveying these large supplies in motor cars.

16th June.

The first company of Armenian deportees left Erzeroum on the 16th June, having got leave to go to Diyarbekir by Kighi. These were forty families in all, mostly belonging to the prosperous business community.

First of all, after starting, all their money was taken from them, “for safety.” After a short halt, when some alarm was expressed, they were reassured of the complete security of their journey, and shortly after resuming their journey (somewhere between Kighi and Palu) they were surrounded and a massacre took place. Only one man and forty women and children reached Harpout.

Evidence of this massacre comes from various sources: (1) letters to Stapleton from women survivors; (2) evidence of Americans who were living in Harpout at the time of the arrival of the survivors, and cared for them; (3) evidence of a Greek, who passed the scene of the massacre shortly after it took place and described it as sickening.

19th June.

About five hundred Armenian families left Erzeroum, via Baibourt, for Erzindjan; they were allowed time for preparations—a concession granted throughout the deportations from the town itself. At Baibourt there was a halt, and the first party of about 10,000 people was joined by later contingents, bringing the number up to about 15,000. A guard of gendarmes (up to 400) was provided by the Vali, and these doubtless took their toll of the Armenians in various ways, licentiously and avariciously.

The Vali went to Erzindjan to see after their security, and it is known that about 15,000 reached Erzindjan. Up to this point the roads were good enough to allow transport by bullock carts (arabas), but after Erzindjan, instead of being allowed to follow the carriage road via Sivas, they were turned aside to the route via Kamakh, Egin and Arabkir, where there were only footpaths. The arabas had, therefore, to be left behind, and no less than 3,000 vehicles were brought back to Erzeroum by an Armenian in the transport service, whom Stapleton met on his return.

At Kamakh, twelve hours from Erzindjan, it is reported that the men were separated and killed, their bodies being thrown into the river. Beyond this place letters come from women only, though Stapleton’s account leads us to suppose that, from among thirty families of which he has news, ten men survive. Letters from women to Stapleton do not, of course, give details of what occurred; they only indicate what happened by such phrases as: “My husband and boy died on the road.” The destinations reached by these Armenians, as definitely known to Stapleton in January, 1916, were Mosul, on the east; Rakka, on the south; Aleppo and Aintab, on the west. The need in these places has been urgent. German Consuls in Aleppo and Mosul are known to have assisted in distributing relief funds sent by Stapleton, per the Agricultural Bank at Constantinople, to Mesopotamia—in all about £1,000 (Turkish).

Stapleton had previously been able to distribute a sum of about £700 (Turkish), received from America, to poor Armenians before their departure. This he did in co-operation with the Armenian Bishop.

November, 1915.

Certain Roman Catholic “lay brothers and sisters” (Armenians), claiming to be under Austrian protection, were permitted to remain until November, 1915, when they left Erzeroum in arabas. They were known to have reached Erzindjan, and probably Constantinople, in safety, where they were housed in the Austrian schools[68].

From twelve to twenty families of artisans were left to the last, as they were doing useful work for the Government. Also fifty single masons, who were building a club-house for the Turks, being compelled to use gravestones from the Armenians’ cemetery.

February, 1916.

These masons were sent to Erzindjan, where they were imprisoned for some days and then brought out and ordered to be shot. Four, however, escaped by shamming death, and one of them saw Stapleton on the 16th February and gave an account of what had happened.

The fate of the artisans is thought to have been similar, but we have no details, except that three families were able to return.

One of those to leave the town in the early days was a photographer. He would not wait. Ten hours out from Erzeroum he was surrounded by forty chettis, stripped naked and stoned to death. They mutilated his body. One child was brained. Of the other children, a girl was taken away and only escaped many months later when the Russians came. Very reluctantly she poured out her story to the Stapletons, from which it appeared that she had been handed round to ten officers after the murder of her husband and his mother, to be their sport.

Thirty-five families of Greeks remained in Erzeroum until near the end. They were then hustled out when the Russian approach was imminent, the Turks virtually saying to them: “We are suffering. Why should not you?”

These deportations went on in an almost continuous stream from the 16th June to the 28th July, when the Armenian Bishop left. He is supposed to have been put to death near Erzindjan.

The part which Stapleton took during these events may now be described. In addition to what we have already said about his relief work, he and Mrs. Stapleton sheltered eighteen Armenian girls. It was by the permission of the Vali that these were allowed to stay with him, and on only one occasion was his house actually threatened. This was just on the eve of the Russian arrival, when he was warned by the German Consul that a plot had been made to burn down his house and, in the subsequent rush of panic, to seize the girls. Nothing could have stopped this but the Russian entry, which took place on the very day for which it was planned. This plot, however, was an isolated act, and, on the whole, Stapleton speaks highly of the general conduct of the Turks in Erzeroum itself.

The Last Days.

On Sunday, the 13th February, the German Consul left. On Monday, the 14th February, the Persian Consul was forced to go with the Turks to Erzindjan. They maintained that, as he was a representative accredited to the Government, he must go with them when the Government moved its headquarters. He went reluctantly, as he was anxious to look after his fellow-countrymen.

On Monday evening (the 14th February) Stapleton was sent for by the Vali, and he went, expecting to be told to leave the town. The Vali said that he and the Turks were leaving on the morrow, but that Stapleton might remain.

Tahsin Bey requested him to ask the Russian Commander to spare the population of the city, as, in general, they had had nothing to do with the deportations.

And that is a fact.

On the 15th, Stapleton was asked by a deputation of all ranks of Turks in the town to go out (three hours’ distance) and meet the Russian Commander. He refused to go, but he delivered Tahsin’s message the following day, when the Russians entered the city.

On the 15th, Turkish troops fired the Armenian episcopal residence and the market. They also burned schools and arsenals, and looted in the city.

Wednesday, the 16th February.

The first Russian to appear was a Cossack with a white apron. He was accompanied by Russian and Armenian soldiers, who shouted: “We are Armenians. Are there any here?” Then the Cossack came into Stapleton’s house, and wrote his name in the book as “the first Russian to enter Erzeroum.” The house was soon filled, and Stapleton lent eight beds to Russian officers, and also supplied food.

When the Grand Duke came, a few days later (the 20th), the Russians asked for another bed; but this was refused.

Mr. H.J. Buxton asked Stapleton: “Was there a good deal of looting by the Russians?” Stapleton said: “No, I should not say a good deal of looting. They were very hungry, and the stores were all open; but, for an invading army, they were quite mild. For the first twenty-four hours they were very short of food.”

Armenian Volunteers began to search the city for Armenians, and they did not find very many. Four girls were held by Turks, and these, together with the eighteen with Stapleton, made the full quota of twenty-two Armenians in the town.

The appointment by the Russians of an “Old Turk” (a former agent of Abd-ul-Hamid at Bukarest, who had subsequently been banished by the Young Turks to Erzeroum) is now giving considerable satisfaction to the Moslem population.

In August, 1915, the Turkish Government appointed and despatched a Commission from Constantinople, ostensibly to protect the property of the deported Armenians. During August this Commission took possession of, and sold, this property, including valuables left with Dr. Case (Stapleton’s colleague at that period). Stapleton asked the police for their authority, and was turned off his own premises by a high-handed secretary. However, he wired to his Government, and got the official removed, and from that time he was treated with respect and was able to exert considerable influence with the Vali; in fact, he remonstrated with him on the brutal treatment of the women at the hands of the zaptiehs and Kurds on the road from Erzeroum.

Stapleton is not a Consul, but a Missionary. To the foreigner a “Missionary” always means a Government representative; and as Stapleton was the only American in Erzeroum, he was, de facto, Consul. In many ways he was able to do far more than if he had been officially a Consul, knowing the ways of the country and exactly how far he could go, but yet free from official fetters.

-----

Footnote 66:

Undated.

Footnote 67:

Mr. Stapleton’s total period of service at Erzeroum is thirteen years. For a letter from Mr. Stapleton himself, see Doc. 149, page 589.—EDITOR.

Footnote 68:

See Doc. 62

54. ERZEROUM: REPORT, DATED 25th SEPTEMBER, 1915, DRAWN UP BY THE AMERICAN CONSUL-GENERAL AT TREBIZOND, AFTER HIS RETURN FROM A VISIT TO ERZEROUM; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

I left Trebizond on the 12th August on horseback, accompanied by kavass Ahmed and a katerdji with my travelling outfit, also two mounted gendarmes furnished by the Governor-General. I reached Erzeroum about midnight on the 17th August, and was allowed to enter the city gate only after communicating with the Commandant.

I found the two American families well. The Rev. Robert S. Stapleton, who is the director of the American Schools and Treasurer of the Mission Station, is living with his wife and two daughters in the upper storey of the Boys’ School building. The lower part is used as a Red Crescent Hospital for lightly wounded or convalescing soldiers, accommodating on an average about 75 patients. Dr. Case and wife and two small children were living in the upper part of the Hospital building, the lower part being used as a Red Crescent Hospital for about 30 patients. The Girls’ School building, with the exception of two rooms belonging to the teachers, which are locked up, is also used by the Red Crescent for lightly wounded soldiers, accommodating on an average about 200. These three fine buildings are on the same street, about 100 yards apart. The Red Crescent flag flies over the three buildings, and on Fridays and holidays the Turkish flag is also raised over the Girls’ School building, which is entirely devoted to the Red Crescent work, with the exception of the two rooms mentioned above. Over the other two buildings, which are partly occupied by the Americans as residences, the American flag is hoisted, in addition to the Red Crescent flag, on Sundays and holidays, and there seems to be no difficulty raised by the authorities now in regard to the flag question.

I called upon the Governor-General, Tahsin Bey, accompanied by the Rev. Mr. Stapleton and Dr. Case, and the Bey received us very cordially. He informed me that he had just received a report from the military authorities that the Russians, upon evacuating Van, had destroyed every building in the city, including the American buildings, in order that the Turkish army should not find shelter for the winter, and had taken the Americans from Van with them on their retirement towards Russia. This information I telegraphed to the Embassy on the 18th August as follows:

“All American buildings reported destroyed by Russians upon their withdrawal from Van, and Americans now in Russia.”

He also informed me that all the Americans at Bitlis had gone to Diyarbekir.

The Vali said that, in carrying out the orders to expel the Armenians from Erzeroum, he had used his best endeavours to protect them on the road, and had given them fifteen days to dispose of their goods and make arrangements to leave. They were not prohibited from selling or disposing of their property, and some families went away with five or more ox-carts loaded with their household goods and provisions. The Missionaries confirm this.

Over 900 bales of goods of various kinds were deposited by 150 Armenians in Mr. Stapleton’s house for safe keeping. There are also about 500 bales in Dr. Case’s house and stable. The value of the bales is estimated by Mr. Stapleton at from £10,000 to £15,000 (Turkish). He has a good American combination safe belonging to the Mission in his house, and two safes of English make left by merchants, which he filled with paper and silver roubles and jewellery deposited by Armenians, for safe keeping. He gave no receipts and assumed no responsibility, however. The gold deposited by Armenians amounted to £5,559 (Turkish), and of this amount £5,000 (Turkish) was sent to Mr. Peet through the Imperial Ottoman Bank in Erzeroum by telegram. The roubles, however, the Bank refused to transfer, and so they were left in his safes in the shape received, namely, tied up in handkerchiefs or made up in small packages. Afterwards these packages were all opened, and an itemized list was made of the contents of each package. The paper roubles and jewellery were then packed into tin boxes and sealed with the Mission seal and deposited in the Imperial Ottoman Bank in Mr. Stapleton’s name for safe keeping....

Many policies of insurance in the New York Life Insurance Company were found in these packages, upon which a separate report will be made. There were also deeds to house and lands, promissory notes and other valuable papers, which no doubt have now lost much of their value.

The Gregorian Armenian Cathedral and the Catholic Armenian Church at Erzeroum were filled with goods of various kinds which had been entrusted to the Imperial Ottoman Bank by the Armenians before they were deported. These goods were entrusted to the Bank, and the keys are in the possession of the Bank....

The Vali of Erzeroum informed me that he had received instructions from Constantinople to allow the Protestants and Catholics to remain where they were for the present. One of Mr. Stapleton’s valuable teachers, Mr. Yeghishé, was taken some time ago for military service, and was working upon the roads near Erzeroum. Mr. Stapleton needed this man as an interpreter, since he himself knows very little Turkish. The Vali promised me he would give Mr. Yeghishé a vesika or permit to remain in the city, if his military exemption taxes were paid. I attended to this matter, and on my way to Trebizond found Mr. Yeghishé at Ilidja, three hours from Erzeroum, and delivered to him the vesika, which gave him freedom to return to Erzeroum and remain there.

I also asked for the return of another Protestant teacher who was thought to be in Erzindjan, but this the Vali declined to allow, saying that the order did not permit their return, but simply allowed them to remain where they were. In case they had already been sent away he could not recall them.

Mr. Stapleton has twenty Armenians in his house now; four of them are women and the balance girls. Dr. Case had six Armenians in his house when he left Erzeroum. Four of these went to Mr. Stapleton, and one he takes with him to Constantinople, and one he expects to leave at Marsovan for training in the Hospital. The Vali granted a special permit for these two girls to travel with Dr. Case, and also handed to him a letter of appreciation for the work he had done in his hospital for Turkish officers.

Mr. Stapleton’s relations with the Vali, Tahsin Bey, are good, and indeed the latter, who was Mutessarif of Pera a few years ago, impressed me as being a very reasonable man, who desired to do the right thing and entertain good relations with the Americans....

55. ERZEROUM: ABSTRACT OF A REPORT BY MR. B.H. KHOUNOUNTZ, REPRESENTATIVE OF THE “ALL-RUSSIAN URBAN UNION,” ON A VISIT TO ERZEROUM AFTER THE RUSSIAN OCCUPATION; PUBLISHED IN THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “HORIZON,” OF TIFLIS, 25th FEBRUARY, 1916.

There are between 80 and 100 Armenians left in Erzeroum—according to other reports 130—and about 25,000 Turks, who dare not come out of their houses. The sanitary condition of the city is deplorable. Mr. Khounountz had interviews with a number of Armenian and foreign eye-witnesses. He met an Armenian officer who had escaped from the Turks, who told him of the deportation and massacre of the Armenians. He said that the attitude of the Turks towards the Armenians was more or less good at the beginning of the war, but it was suddenly changed after the Turkish defeat at Sari-Kamysh, as they laid the blame for this defeat upon the Armenians, though he could not tell why.

After that, they separated the Armenian soldiers from the Turks as a dangerous element, and removed them from the fighting line. They put them on the roads to work as ordinary labourers.

At the same time terror reigned in the city. Mr. Pasdermadjian, a well-known Armenian, was assassinated, and a number of prominent young men were hanged or exiled. A number of Armenians were forced to go to the cemetery and destroy the statue which was erected to the memory of martyred Russian soldiers in 1829. They were also forced to open hospitals for the wounded Turkish soldiers at their own expense.

On the 5/18th April, by an order received from Constantinople, the Turks held a big meeting in which the hodjas (religious heads) openly preached massacre, casting the responsibility for the defeat upon the Armenians. The Armenians appealed to them and implored for mercy, but in vain. The Vali was rather inclined to spare the Armenians, but the order from Constantinople had tied his hands.

The deportation of all the Armenians in the Vilayet of Erzeroum began on the 4th June. It was carried out promptly, and took the Armenians by surprise. Gendarmes were sent to the Armenian villages at night, who entered the houses, separated all the men from their families and deported them. The deportation of the men of Erzeroum—the city proper—was carried out less cruelly, the Vali giving them 15 days’ notice.

But as the refugees were escorted by brutal gendarmes and chettis (bands of robbers) many of them were massacred in a most cruel manner, and very few of them reached their destination, which was the district of Kamakh, west of Erzindjan.

According to the officer, the plan of deportation was exactly the same as in other vilayets. None were spared, not even certain women teachers—Protestant and Roman Catholic—who were foreign subjects and had taught in foreign colleges.

Only 15 skilled labourers were left, with their families, as they were needed for war work. These were massacred before the Turks left Erzeroum.

56. ERZEROUM: ABSTRACT OF A REPORT BY DR. Y. MINASSIAN, WHO ACCOMPANIED MR. KHOUNOUNTZ TO ERZEROUM AS REPRESENTATIVE OF THE CAUCASIAN SECTION OF THE “ALL-RUSSIAN URBAN UNION”; PUBLISHED IN THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “MSCHAK,” OF TIFLIS, 8th MARCH, 1916.

Dr. Minassian gathered his information from the following sources: The American Vice-Consul at Erzeroum, Mr. Stapleton; Mrs. Stapleton; Dr. Case of the American Mission Hospital; an educated Armenian lady—Zarouhi—from Baibourt, who escaped the massacres by a miracle; an Armenian soldier who had accepted Islam; an old man from Erzeroum; and many others.

Before Turkey’s entry into the war, the Young Turks saw that war between them and Russia was inevitable, so they tried to win the Armenians over to their side by promising them all kinds of privileges.

As soon as war was declared, they confiscated everything from the shops of the Turks, Greeks, Armenians and Syrians, without any distinction of race or religion. The Armenians lost more than the other nationalities, as they were the wealthiest commercially.

The Turks asked the Armenians to join with them, but they declined, saying that if they fought against the Russians they would endanger the lives of their brothers in Caucasia. This seemed reasonable to the authorities, and on the surface, at least, they left the Armenians in peace.

The Armenians performed their civic duties faithfully and opened a hospital for the Turkish wounded; later on they were forced to open others.

Everything went smoothly until the first Turkish defeat, which occurred at Keutag. It was then that the Turks found out that the Armenian volunteers were fighting side by side with the Russians. This was announced everywhere and excited the Turks; but no steps were taken until it was reported that Garo Pasdermadjian, a member of the Ottoman Parliament and one of the deputies for Erzeroum, was commanding a body of volunteers in the Russian army. The result was that Mr. Pasdermadjian’s brother was assassinated. Then Djemal Effendi from Constantinople, with another Turk, Saifoullah, incited the people to massacre the Armenians.

The Governor saw that the excitement was growing, so he called a conference of all the prominent Turks. This was held at Pasha-Kiosk, and Djemal and Saifoullah took part. These demanded an immediate massacre, but the Governor requested them to hold their hand until he could communicate with Constantinople about it.

After this the authorities disarmed and removed all the Armenian soldiers from Erzeroum, and put them on the roads to work as unskilled labourers. A number of wealthy Armenians were forced to destroy the statue which was erected in memory of martyred Russian soldiers in 1828, and transfer its stones to another place to build a club-house for the Young Turks. Some could not stand the hard work, yet could only obtain release from it by paying large sums.

Then the rich Armenians were asked to vacate their homes and to transform them into hospitals. This was done willingly, and the Armenians undertook to care for the wounded.

Then an order came to some Armenians to leave their homes and go. But they begged to remain, and were allowed to do so on payment of £1,500 (Turkish).

A week later, all the rich and educated men were imprisoned; many of them died in prison under terrible tortures.

Then it was announced that they would all be deported. When the Governor was asked where they would be sent, he replied: “To a safe place, where the mob cannot hurt you.”

The Armenians packed all their valuables and left them at the American Consulate, the missionary schools, and at the Armenian Church.

To obviate any possibility of resistance, the villagers were first deported towards Kamakh, and when the Erzeroum Armenians followed them they saw heaps of ruins in place of prosperous villages.

The deportation of the Armenians of Baibourt was more terrible. They were all taken by surprise at midnight.

“Where are you taking us?” they asked. “To a safe place,” was the reply, “away from the Turks, where the mob cannot massacre you. It is the duty of the Government to protect its subjects. You will remain there until peace is re-established.”

The Armenians believed them and followed the gendarmes without resistance. After they had travelled several miles, they noticed that the attitude of the guards changed and that they had been deceived. By and by they were asked to pay fifty pounds, which they paid. Towards nightfall they asked for two girls. The next day they asked for five hundred pounds. They had to pay that also. That night they asked for five girls and took them. Then every day they were robbed. They lost all their valuables and provisions. The Turkish villagers stole the best looking girls and boys.

Just before they reached Erzindjan, their outer clothing was taken away from them and they were left in their underclothes. When they reached Erzindjan they protested to the Kaimakam. The Kaimakam promised to accompany them. The next day they started for Kamakh.

After they had travelled a few miles, they were attacked by chettis from all sides. The Armenians wanted to run back to Erzindjan, but the gendarmes opened fire on them. Many of them were thus massacred, and the remainder were driven towards Kamakh.

It was discovered that these chettis had been organised by Djemal Effendi, and it was by deliberate design that all the refugees were left in their white underclothes, so that no one could run away or hide himself.

When the refugees reached a gorge of the Euphrates River they were attacked again, and many of them were drowned in the river.

Zarouhi—who related the above story—said that the river was filled with corpses. She also was thrown into the river, but clung to a rock behind some bushes and remained there until the gendarmes and chettis had gone away.

Coming out of the river she met a kind Kurdish shepherd, who wrapped her in a blanket and took her to the house of a Turk who knew her. The Turk took her to Erzeroum and kept her in his home.

In speaking of the responsibility of the Germans for the massacres and deportations, Dr. Minassian says that, before the deportation, the Armenians went to the German Consul and asked his assistance. His answer was: “I do not want to mix in other people’s affairs, and I have no authorisation to do so from my Ambassador at Constantinople.”

The German officers at Erzeroum helped the Turks to organise the deportation, and also took their share of the booty. Almost every one of them had kidnapped Armenian girls.

An officer called Schapner, for instance, took with him four girls; another called Karl, two girls; and so on—there was a long fist of names which the reporter could not remember.

57. ERZEROUM: STATEMENT BY MR. A.S. SAFRASTIAN, DATED TIFLIS, 15th MARCH, 1916.

Since last October, when the Armenian atrocities were disclosed to the world at large, we had hoped against hope that, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, all that was said to have occurred might not be confirmed; that there might have been outlying districts in Turkish Armenia where the local Armenians had been spared the horrors that had accompanied their destruction in areas situated on the main roads. Unfortunately, now that the entire provinces of Erzeroum and Bitlis have been cleared of the Turk and one is able to see for oneself what actually has taken place, one is simply staggered at the depth and extent of the great crime, and the unprecedentedly cruel means by which the Armenians were cleared out of those two provinces, as well as the adjacent districts.

After seeing something with my own eyes in Erzeroum and Van, and compiling the facts about Bitlis, Moush and Khnyss from Russian official and other sources, my impression is that, out of the 250,000 Armenians of the Erzeroum and Bitlis Vilayets that remained under the dominion of the Turk in April, 1915 (exclusive of some 50,000 who saved themselves last summer, either by fighting their way out or by the advance of the Russians, and are now in Trans-Caucasia), only some 10,000 can be accounted for since an estimate was made possible by the death-blow which the Turks suffered last month. The remaining 240,000 or so have apparently perished under circumstances of the most extreme violence and inhumanity of which any human being is capable.

I am now in a position to state that all the accounts of Armenian atrocities which have been published in Europe and the United States are not only completely true, but that they represent merely such facts as have come under the eyes of consular officers or missionaries of neutral states; whereas the most ghastly and heinous crimes have been committed in the unfrequented parts of the country, out of sight of any observer.

The city of Erzeroum, the great military stronghold in Turkish Armenia, contained some 50,000 inhabitants before the war, of whom 20,000 were Armenians. The so-called plain of Erzeroum, a fertile alluvial plateau extending north-west of the city, contained some 60 Armenian villages with at least 45,000 inhabitants, almost all of them belonging to a sturdy race of peasants.

As soon as the European war broke out, the Central Committee of the Young Turks sent one Boukhar-ed-Din-Shakir-Bey, one of the Committee leaders, to Erzeroum, to organise the annihilation of the Armenians. Another, Djemal Effendi, a fanatic of the foulest type, was sent later on to help him in the work. These two Committee stalwarts sent from Constantinople were assisted in their fiendish business by two notorious natives—Edib Hodja and Djafer Bey.

At Erzeroum, as everywhere else, the Armenians in particular were ruthlessly robbed of most of the goods they possessed under the cloak of military requisitions. The Turkish defeat at Sarikamysh in January, 1915, and the exaggerated accounts of the part played by Armenian Volunteers in that battle, envenomed relations at Erzeroum. A Turkish officer who returned from Sarikamysh told the Armenian Bishop Sempad at Erzeroum that they chiefly met Armenians on the battlefields: “Many of our soldiers were shot by Armenians,” he said, “and it was the Volunteers who destroyed our villages and scouting parties.”

Subsequently a campaign of slander and provocation was started by the Young Turk leaders against the Armenian people. Armenian soldiers in the Turkish army were disarmed and sent to labour battalions, and further severe measures were taken to squeeze every available asset out of the helpless people. A great mass meeting was held by the Turks on the 18th April just outside the city, in which the Armenians were publicly denounced as “traitors” and “dangerous to the Empire” and as supporters of the enemies of Turkey. Strict orders were issued to all Moslems who were inclined to shield their Armenian friends that they would be punished as severely as their protégés if they dared to protect them.

Fully aware of the fate that awaited them, the Armenians of Erzeroum made desperate appeals to Tahsin Bey, the Vali of the province, for protection. The latter’s reply was that he could not defy the instructions sent by the Central Government. The answer of Herr Anders, the German Consul at Erzeroum, to whom the Armenians appealed again for protection, seems to have been still more brutal. He definitely stated that the persecutions levelled by the Turkish Government and the mob against the Armenians were quite lawful, and that he could not interfere in the matter.

By an exercise of imagination one may perhaps visualise to some extent the anguish and agony those poor Armenians suffered during April and May. Trapped on all sides by the ruthless enemy and deprived of all means of armed or legal protection, they attempted to make the best of an unprecedentedly tragic situation. Almost all the intellectual leaders and teachers were openly done to death in prison under horrible tortures. Pilos, Atrouni and several others have never been heard of since their imprisonment. Pasdermadjian, a leading citizen of the town, was shot dead in the streets. This reign of terror also prevailed in the villages of the plain.

The capture of Van by the Armenians on the 16th May and the entry of the Armenian Volunteers, followed by the Russian Army, made a great impression on the Turkish authorities at Erzeroum. On the same day, the Armenians of Khnyss and of the neighbouring 38 villages were butchered almost to a man, and the women and children distributed among the Kurds. During the recent capture of Khnyss by the Russians, some 3,000 women and children were rescued in and around Khnyss. Apparently these represent the remnant of the 22,000 Armenians of the Sandjak of Khnyss.

In the meantime the Russians were advancing towards Melazkerd and Bitlis, and the Turks deported the Armenian peasants from Melazkerd and Passin and drove them towards Erzeroum. These half-starved peasants, exhausted and harried by forced marches, were not allowed to enter Erzeroum; they were kept out in the rain for seven days. Their situation became so shocking in May (1915) that even the German Consul was moved at the spectacle, and took some clothing and bread in his own car to distribute among “these rebellious scoundrels.” Later on they were driven towards Erzindjan and drowned in the Euphrates.

On the 4th June, the first batch of Armenian peasants from the plain of Erzeroum, amounting to some 15,000 persons, were forced by the gendarmes to leave their homes and proceed to Mamahatoun, west of Erzeroum. They were escorted by chetti (Moslem Volunteer) bands consisting of criminals released from prison since the proclamation of the Holy War. In the ankle-deep mud and along the rugged roads, children and weak women fell by the wayside amid the laughter of the chettis. Every evening a forced tribute was levied upon the peasants. Gradually they were robbed of everything they possessed—money, clothing, horses, etc. Girls and women were distributed among the Turks as they passed through Turkish villages. A few hours’ distance beyond Mamahatoun, at the entrance of a valley called the Kamakh gorge, this convoy was “ambushed by unknown robbers.” The signal was given by a revolver shot, whereupon a volley of fire was poured upon the Armenians. One of the survivors of this batch, a lad of 18 whom I saw in Erzeroum, told me that the shrieks and cries of the women and weeping children under fire were distracting. Many attempted to escape, but they were fired upon by their own escort. In two hours’ time the valley had become a vast cemetery of unburied human bodies. Out of the 15,000 thus disposed of, a few escaped and reached Erzeroum in the guise of Turkish peasants.

On the 18th June it was the turn of the city. A fortnight’s time-limit was given to the Armenians for settling their affairs; they packed their property in boxes and bales and stored them with Mr. Stapleton, the head of the American Mission, and in the Armenian Cathedral. The Governor took £1,000 (Turkish) from them in payment for a safe-conduct before their departure. A hundred and sixty leading families were selected first for deportation. They were all people of means and education. The German officers in Erzeroum behaved in an outrageous manner towards the Armenian women torn away from their men. The Germans, in fact, seem to have set the example of wrenching women from their homes. One Captain Schapner (?) is said to have forced Miss Tchilingarian, a handsome girl, to follow him. On her resisting and crying, she was dragged about in the streets and roughly handled. This worthy German also carried off Mrs. Sarafian, a young woman educated in Switzerland. Another German lieutenant, Karl (?), dragged five women to his rooms, and so on.

The convoy of 160 families started out with carriages and some luggage, and were sent off in the same direction as their predecessors—towards Mamahatoun and Erzindjan. As they travelled they were robbed of everything and even stripped of their clothing. They are reported as having skirted the town of Erzindjan, but beyond that nothing has since been heard of them.

Bishop Sempad was sent off alone in his own carriage to Erzindjan, and never heard of again.

In the last week of June, several parties of Erzeroum Armenians were deported on successive days and most of them massacred on the way, either by shooting or drowning. One, Madame Zarouhi, an elderly lady of means, who was thrown into the Euphrates, saved herself by clinging to a boulder in the river. She succeeded in approaching the bank and returned to Erzeroum to hide herself in a Turkish friend’s house. She told Prince Argoutian (Argoutinsky), the representative of the “All-Russian Urban Union” in Erzeroum, that she shuddered to recall how hundreds of children were bayoneted by the Turks and thrown into the Euphrates, and how men and women were stripped naked, tied together in hundreds, shot and then hurled into the river. In a loop of the river near Erzindjan, she said, the thousands of dead bodies created such a barrage that the Euphrates changed its course for about a hundred yards. Several Armenians of this last party, however, seem to have survived this dreadful journey. Recently some of them wrote from Rakka, in northern Syria, to Mr. Stapleton imploring money and help, as they were in the direst distress.

After the recent capture of the city by the Russians, there were some 100 Armenians altogether in Erzeroum and some 25,000 Turks. Thirty girls and women were protected by Mr. Stapleton in his house. A certain number of women are gradually being rescued from the Turks in the city, and perhaps thousands more may be saved, if the military authorities take the necessary measures and help the Armenians to discover their own people.

Most of the children converted to Islam are quite used to Moslem habits; they speak and behave as if they were Turks by birth. They are now changing these habits again in Armenian hands.

When one stood at the gate called Kars Kapou, the eastern entrance to the city, and looked at the panorama it presented in March, 1916, Erzeroum did not seem to have suffered great changes in its general aspect. But I suffered a rude shock in the interior of the city, when I saw Armenian houses occupied by Turks still gloating over their booty, the city deprived of its Armenian element, and the dome of the Cathedral broken away at its base.

The Armenians of Erzeroum to whom I have talked here about their prospects are consoling themselves—though it is a poor consolation—with the thought that thousands of them had left the city before the war, and that they will all return home and take possession of their property as soon as the conditions there become better defined.

58. ERZEROUM: STATEMENT BY THE KURD ALI-AGHAZADÉ FARO, PUBLISHED IN THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “MSCHAK,” 19th DECEMBER, 1915.

Ali-Aghazadé Faro, a Kurd, related to some Armenians of St. Garabed, who reached Caucasia as refugees, that he had gone to Erzeroum last September to sell sheep, &c., and to get his share of the booty from the Armenians if possible. Faro remained in Erzeroum for five or six days, during which time he did not see a single Armenian. He only saw Turks sitting in the shops of the Armenians. When he asked how it was that they were in these shops, some answered that they had bought them, while others said that they were gifts to them from the Government.

Faro spent the night in a Turkish house, and asked his host what had become of the Armenians. The latter replied as follows:—

“It was at the end of May when the Governor asked all the leaders and prominent Armenians to go to him. He told them that they were obliged to abandon the city to the enemy, consequently the army would retreat from the place. Therefore he instructed them to get ready and join him within twenty-four hours. They had to get ready, but as all means of transport had been requisitioned, they could take practically nothing with them. Before the twenty-four hours were up, they all gathered near the Government Building without knowing what was impending. Several hundred gendarmes surrounded them immediately and drove them out of the city towards the west. They were taken as far as Charuk-Dersim (Doujik). The Kurds of Dersim had already received their orders. They attacked them and killed every one. Another batch of Armenians was deported towards Sivas. They were seen passing through the Kamakh Pass, but what happened to them afterwards has never been known. A few hundred of their most beautiful girls were captured by certain Turks, and the Government was still looking for them.”

59. BAIBOURT: NARRATIVE OF AN ARMENIAN LADY DEPORTED IN THE THIRD CONVOY; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

A week before anything was done to Baibourt, the villages all round had been emptied and their inhabitants had become victims of the gendarmes and marauding bands. Three days before the starting of the Armenians from Baibourt, after a week’s imprisonment, Bishop Anania Hazarabedian was hanged, with seven other notables. After these hangings, seven or eight other notables were killed in their own houses for refusing to leave the city. Seventy or eighty other Armenians, after being beaten in prison, were taken to the woods and killed. The Armenian population of Baibourt was sent off in three batches; I was among the third batch. My husband died eight years ago, leaving me and my eight-year-old daughter and my mother a large property, so that we were living in comfort. Since mobilization began, the Ottoman Commandant has been living in my house free of rent. He told me not to go, but I felt I must share the fate of my people. I took three horses with me, loaded with provisions. My daughter had some five-lira pieces round her neck, and I carried some twenty liras and four diamond rings on my person. All else that we had was left behind. Our party left on the 1st/ 14th June, fifteen gendarmes going with us. The party numbered four or five hundred[69] persons. We had got only two hours away from home when bands of villagers and brigands in large numbers, with rifles, guns, axes, etc., surrounded us on the road, and robbed us of all we had. The gendarmes took my three horses and sold them to Turkish mouhadjirs, pocketing the money. They took my money and the gold pieces from my daughter’s neck, also all our food. After this they separated the men, one by one, and shot them all within six or seven days—every male above fifteen years old. By my side were killed two priests, one of them over ninety years of age. The brigands took all the good-looking women and carried them off on their horses. Very many women and girls were thus carried off to the mountains, among them my sister, whose one-year-old baby they threw away; a Turk picked it up and carried it off, I know not where. My mother walked till she could walk no farther, and dropped by the roadside on a mountain top. We found on the road many of those who had been deported from Baibourt in the previous convoys; some women were among the killed, with their husbands and sons. We also came across some old people and little infants still alive but in a pitiful condition, having shouted their voices away. We were not allowed to sleep at night in the villages, but lay down outside. Under cover of the night indescribable deeds were committed by the gendarmes, brigands and villagers. Many of us died from hunger and strokes of apoplexy. Others were left by the roadside, too feeble to go on.

One morning we saw fifty or sixty wagons with about thirty Turkish widows, whose husbands had been killed in the war; and these were going to Constantinople. One of these women made a sign to one of the gendarmes to kill a certain Armenian whom she pointed out. The gendarmes asked her if she did not wish to kill him herself, at which she said “Why not?” and, drawing a revolver from her pocket, shot him dead. Every one of these Turkish hanoums had five or six Armenian girls of ten or under with her. Boys the Turks never wished to take; they killed them all, of whatever age. These women wanted to take my daughter, too, but she would not be separated from me. Finally we were both taken into their wagons on our promising to become Moslems. As soon as we entered the araba, they began to teach us how to be Moslems, and changed our names, calling me X. and her Y.

The worst and most unimaginable horrors were reserved for us at the banks of the Euphrates[70] and in the Erzindjan plain. The mutilated bodies of women, girls and little children made everybody shudder. The brigands were doing all sorts of awful deeds to the women and girls that were with us, whose cries went up to heaven. At the Euphrates, the brigands and gendarmes threw into the river all the remaining children under fifteen years old. Those that could swim were shot down as they struggled in the water.

After seven days we reached Erzindjan. Not an Armenian was left alive there. The Turkish women took my daughter and me to the bath, and there showed us many other women and girls that had accepted Islam. Between there and Enderessi, the fields and hillsides were dotted with swollen and blackened corpses that filled and fouled the air with their stench. On this road we met six women wearing the feradjé[71] and with children in their arms. But when the gendarmes lifted their veils, they found that they were men in disguise, so they shot them. After thirty-two days’ journey we reached our destination.

-----

Footnote 69:

“4000-5000”—Doc. 2

Footnote 70:

i.e., the Kara Su.

Footnote 71:

Moslem veil.

60. BAIBOURT: STATEMENT, REPRODUCED FROM THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “HORIZON,” OF TIFLIS, IN THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “GOTCHNAG” OF NEW YORK, 18th MARCH, 1916.

On the 15th May, some of the prominent Armenians of Baibourt—north-west of Erzeroum—Hadji Simon, Hamazasb, Arshag and Drtad Simavonian, Hagop Aghparian, Vagharshag Lousigian, Garabed Sarafian, Garabed Duldulian, and the Bishop were arrested. They were then taken to a place called “Ourbadji Oghlou Déré” and killed. When the Armenians heard of this they were terrified, but the Government declared that these were traitors, that they had sent money to the enemy and tried to persuade the people to revolt—that consequently they were punished, but that nothing would happen to the other Armenians. They were, in fact, really left in peace for some time, but after the retreat from Van Turkish soldiers came and disarmed them. They were then deported and massacred.

Forty armed young men from the village of Lsounk and 20 from Varvan escaped to the mountains. They were pursued by regular soldiers and forced to fight. Both sides lost heavily, and finally 12 of the Armenians, by the help of Greek villagers, reached Caucasia.

61. BAIBOURT, KEGHI, AND ERZINDJAN: LETTER[72], DATED ERZEROUM, 25th MAY/7th JUNE, 1915; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

The districts of Erzindjan, Keghi, and Baibourt have been devastated by forced emigrations. The Armenian population of the city of Erzeroum has also received categoric orders to leave the city. They will be deported en masse; 160 merchants are already en route with their families. The Government has confiscated their goods. We have no information about the deported people; they say they will be sent to Mosul.

-----

Footnote 72:

Name of author withheld

62. ERZINDJAN: STATEMENT BY TWO RED CROSS NURSES OF DANISH NATIONALITY, FORMERLY IN THE SERVICE OF THE GERMAN MILITARY MISSION AT ERZEROUM[73]; COMMUNICATED BY A SWISS GENTLEMAN OF GENEVA.

In March, 1915, we learnt through an Armenian doctor, who died later on of typhus, that the Turkish Government was preparing for a massacre on a grand scale. He begged us to find out from General Passelt whether the rumour were true. We heard afterwards that the General (a gallant officer) had his own fears of it, and asked, for that reason, to be relieved of his post.... We fell sick of typhus and ... in consequence of a number of changes in the hospital staff ... we were obliged to leave Erzeroum. Through the good offices of the German Consul at Erzeroum, who also possessed the confidence of the Armenians, we were engaged by the Red Cross at Erzindjan, and worked there seven weeks.

At the beginning of June, the head of the Red Cross Mission at Erzindjan, Staff-Surgeon A., told us that the Armenians had revolted at Van, that measures had been taken against them which would be put into general execution, and that the whole Armenian population of Erzindjan and the neighbourhood would be transported to Mesopotamia, where it would no longer find itself in a majority. There was, however, to be no massacre, and measures were to be taken to feed the exiles and to secure their personal safety by a military escort. Wagons loaded with arms and bombs were reported, he said, to have been discovered at Erzindjan, and many arrests were to be made. The Red Cross staff were forbidden to have any relations with the exiles, and prohibited any excursions on foot or horseback beyond a certain radius.

After that, several days’ grace was given to the population of Erzindjan for the sale of their property, which was naturally realised at ludicrous prices. In the first week of June,[74] the first convoy started; the rich people were allowed to hire carriages. They were to go to Harpout. The three succeeding days, further deportations followed[75]; many children were taken charge of by Moslem families; later on, the authorities decided that these children must go into exile as well.

The families of the Armenians employed in our hospital had to go with the rest, including a woman who was ill. A protest from Dr. Neukirch, who was attending her, had no effect except to postpone her departure two days. A soldier attached to our staff as cobbler said to Sister B.[76]: “I am now forty-six years old, and yet I am taken for military service, although I have paid my exemption-tax regularly every year. I have never done anything against the Government, and now they are taking from me my whole family, my seventy-year-old mother, my wife and five children, and I do not know where they are going.” He was especially affected by the thought of his little daughter, a year and a half old; “She is so sweet. She has such pretty eyes”; he wept like a child. The next day he came back; “I know the truth. They are all dead.” And it was only too true. Our Turkish cook came to us crying, and told us how the Kurds had attacked the unhappy convoy at Kamakh Boghaz[77], had pillaged it completely, and had killed a great number of the exiles. This must have been the 14th June.

Two young Armenian teachers, educated at the College of Harpout, whose lives were spared, related that the convoy had been caught under a cross-fire by the Kurds on the flanks and the Turkish irregulars in the rear. They had thrown themselves flat on the ground and pretended to be dead; afterwards they succeeded in finding their way back to Erzindjan by circuitous paths, bribing some Kurds whom they met on the way. One of them had with her her fiancé in woman’s clothes. He had been shielded by a Turkish class-mate. When they reached Erzindjan a gendarme tried to abduct the girl and her fiancé interfered. He was killed, and the girls were carried off to Turkish houses, where they were treated kindly but had pressure put upon them to change their religion. They conveyed this news to us through a young doctor who attended some Armenian patients in our hospital, and was thereby enabled to get into touch with us; he brought us an appeal from them to take them with us to Harpout. If only they had poison, they said, they would poison themselves. They had no information whatever as to the fate of their companions.

The day after,[78] Friday, the 11th June, a party of regular troops (belonging to the 86th Cavalry Brigade) were sent out “to keep the Kurds in order.”

We heard subsequently from these soldiers how the defenceless Armenians had been massacred to the last one. The butchery had taken four hours. The women threw themselves on their knees, they had thrown their children into the Euphrates, and so on.[79] “It was horrible,” said a nice-looking young soldier; “I could not fire, I only pretended.” For that matter, we have often heard Turks express their disapproval and their pity. The soldiers told us that there were ox-carts all ready to carry the corpses to the river and remove every trace of the massacre.[80]

Next day there was a regular battue through the cornfields. (The corn was then standing, and many Armenians had hidden in it.)

From that time on, convoys of exiles were continually arriving, all on their way to the slaughter; we have no doubt about their fate, after the unanimous testimony which we have received from many different quarters. Later, our Greek driver told us that the victims had their hands tied behind their backs, and were thrown down from the cliffs into the river. This method was employed when the numbers were too great to dispose of them in any other fashion. It was also easier work for the murderers. Sister B. and I, of course, began at once to think what we could do, and we decided to travel with one of these convoys to Harpout. We did not know yet that the massacre on the road had been ordered by the Government, and we also thought that we could check the brutality of the gendarmes and stave off the assaults of the Kurds, since we speak Kurdish and have some influence over the tribesmen.

We then telegraphed to the Consul at Erzeroum, telling him that we had been dismissed from the hospital, and urging him, in the interests of Germany, to come to Erzindjan. He wired back: “Impossible to leave my post. Expect Austrians, who are due to pass here the 22nd June....”

On the evening of the 17th June, we went out for a walk with Mr. C., the druggist of the Red Cross Staff. He was as much horrified as we were at the cruelties that were being perpetrated, and expressed himself very plainly on the subject. He also received his dismissal. On our walk we met a gendarme, who told us that, ten minutes’ distance away, a large convoy of exiles from Baibourt had been halted. He narrated to us, with appalling vividness, how one by one the men had been massacred and cast into the depths of the gorge[81]: “Kezzé, kezzé, geliorlar! (Kill, kill, push them over).” He told how, at each village, the women had been violated; how he himself had desired to take a girl, but had been told that already she was no longer a maid; how children had had their brains battered out when they cried or hindered the march. “There were the naked bodies of three girls; I buried them to do a good deed,” was his concluding remark.

The following morning, at a very early hour, we heard the procession of exiles passing in front of our house, along the high road leading in to Erzindjan. We followed them and kept up with them as far as the town, about an hour’s walk. Mr. G. came with us. It was a very large gang—only two or three of them men, all the rest women and children. Many of the women looked demented. They cried out: “Spare us, we will become Moslems or Germans or whatever you will; only spare us. We are being taken to Kamakh Boghaz to have our throats cut,” and they made an expressive gesture. Others kept silence, and marched patiently on with a few bundles on their backs and their children in their arms. Others begged us to save their children. Many Turks arrived on the scene to carry off children and girls, with or without their parents’ consent. There was no time for reflection, for the crowd was being moved on continually by the mounted gendarmes brandishing their whips. On the outskirts of the town, the road to Kamakh Boghaz branches off from the main highway. At this point the scene turned into a regular slave market; for our part, we took a family of six children, from three to fourteen years old, who clutched hold of us, and another little girl as well. We entrusted the latter to our Turkish cook, who was on the spot. She wanted to take the child to the kitchen of Dr. A.’s private house, and keep her there until we could come to fetch her; but the doctor’s adjutant, Riza Bey, gave the woman a beating and threw the child out into the street. Meanwhile, with cries of agony, the gang of sufferers continued its march, while we returned to the hospital with our six children. Dr. A. gave us permission to keep them in our room until we had packed our belongings; they were given food and soon became calmer. “Now we are saved,” they had cried when we took them. They refused to let go of our hands. The smallest, the son of a rich citizen of Baibourt, lay huddled up in his mother’s cloak; his face was swollen with crying and he seemed inconsolable. Once he rushed to the window and pointed to a gendarme: “That’s the man who killed my father.” The children handed over to us their money, 475 piastres (about £4), which their parents had given them with the idea that perhaps the children, at any rate, would not be shot.

We then rode into the town to obtain permission for these children to travel with us. We were told that the high authorities were in session to decide the fate of the convoy which had just arrived. Nevertheless, Sister B. succeeded in getting word with someone she knew, who gave her the authorisation to take the children with her, and offered to give them false names in the passport. This satisfied us, and, after returning to the hospital, we left the same evening with baggage and children and all, and installed ourselves in a hotel at Erzindjan. The Turkish orderlies at the hospital were very friendly, and said: “You have done a good deed in taking these children.” We could get nothing but one small room for the eight of us. During the night there was a frightful knocking at our door, and we were asked whether there were two German ladies in the room. Then all became quiet again, to the great relief of our little ones. Their first question had been, would we prevent them from being made Mohammedans? And was our cross (the nurses’ Red Cross) the same as theirs? After that they were comforted. We left them in the room, and went ourselves to take our tea in the hotel café. We noticed that some discharged hospital patients of ours, who had always shown themselves full of gratitude towards us, behaved as if they no longer recognised us. The proprietor of the hotel began to hold forth, and everyone listened to what he was saying: “The death of these women and children has been decreed at Constantinople.” The Hodja (Turkish priest) of our hospital came in, too, and said to us, among other things: “If God has no pity on them, why must you have pity? The Armenians have committed atrocities at Van. That happened because their religion is ekzik (inferior). The Moslems should not have followed their example, but should have carried out the massacre with greater humanity.” We always gave the same answer—that they ought to discover the guilty and do justice upon them, but that the massacre of women and children was, and always will remain, a crime.

Then we went to the Mutessarif himself, with whom we had not succeeded in obtaining an interview before. The man looked like the devil incarnate, and his behaviour bore out his appearance. In a bellowing voice he shouted at us: “Women have no business to meddle with politics, but ought to respect the Government!” We told him that we should have acted in precisely the same way if the victims had been Mohammedans, and that politics had nothing to do with our conduct. He answered that we had been expelled from the hospital, and that we should get the same treatment from him; that he would not stand us, and that he would certainly not permit us to go to Harpout to fetch our belongings, but would send us to Sivas. Worst of all, he forbade us to take the children away, and at once sent a gendarme to carry them off from our room.

On our way back to the hotel we actually met them, but they were hurried past us so quickly that we had not even a chance to return them their money. Afterwards we asked Dr. Lindenberg to see that this money was restored to them; but, to find out where they were, he had to make enquiries of a Turkish officer, and just at the moment of our departure, when we had been told that they had already been killed, and when we had no longer any chance of making a further search for them, the aforementioned Riza Bey came and asked us for this money, on the ground that he wanted to return it to the children! We had already decided to spend it on relieving other Armenians.

At Erzindjan we were now looked askance at. They would no longer let us stay at the hotel, but took us to a deserted Armenian house. The whole of this extensive quarter of the town seemed dead. People came and went at will to loot the contents of the houses; in some of the houses families of Moslem refugees were already installed. We had now a roof over our heads, but no one would go to get us food. However, we managed to send a note to Dr. A., who kindly allowed us to return to the hospital. The following day, the Mutessarif sent a springless baggage cart, in which we were to do the seven days’ journey to Sivas. We gave him to understand that we would not have this conveyance, and, upon the representations of Dr. A., they sent us a travelling carriage, with the threat to have us arrested if we did not start at once. This was on Monday, the 21st June, and we should have liked to wait for the Austrians, who were due to arrive on the Tuesday morning, and continue the journey in their company; but Dr. A. declared that he could no longer give us protection, and so we started out. Dr. Lindenberg did us the kindness of escorting us as far as Rifahia[82]. During the first days of our journey we saw five corpses. One was a woman’s, and still had clothes on; the others were naked, one of them headless. There were two Turkish officers on the road with us who were really Armenians, as we were told by the gendarme attached to us. They preserved their incognito towards us, and maintained a very great reserve, but always took care not to get separated from us. On the fourth day they did not put in an appearance. When we enquired after them, we were given to understand that the less we concerned ourselves about them the better it would be for us. On the road, we broke our journey near a Greek village. A savage-looking man was standing by the roadside. He began to talk with us, and told us he was stationed there to kill all the Armenians that passed, and that he had already killed 250. He explained that they all deserved their fate, for they were all Anarchists—not Liberals or Socialists, but Anarchists. He told the gendarmes that he had received orders by telephone to kill our two travelling companions. So these two men with their Armenian drivers must have perished there. We could not restrain ourselves from arguing with this assassin, but when he went off our Greek driver warned us: “Don’t say a word, if you do ...”—and he made the gesture of taking aim. The rumour had, in fact, got about that we were Armenians, which was as good as to say condemned to death.

One day we met a convoy of exiles, who had said good-bye to their prosperous villages and were at that moment on their way to Kamakh Boghaz. We had to draw up a long time by the roadside while they marched past. The scene will never be forgotten by either of us: a very small number of elderly men, a large number of women—vigorous figures with energetic features—a crowd of pretty children, some of them fair and blue-eyed, one little girl smiling at the strangeness of all she was seeing, but on all the other faces the solemnity of death. There was no noise; it was all quiet, and they marched along in an orderly way, the children generally riding on the ox-carts; and so they passed, some of them greeting us on the way—all these poor people, who are now standing at the throne of God, and whose cry goes up before Him. An old woman was made to get down from her donkey—she could no longer keep the saddle. Was she killed on the spot? Our hearts had become as cold as ice.

The gendarme attached to us told us then that he had escorted a convoy of 3,000 women and children to Mamahatoun (near Erzeroum) and Kamakh Boghaz. “Hep gildi, bildi,” he said: “All gone, all dead.” We asked him: “Why condemn them to this frightful torment; why not kill them in their villages?” Answer: “It is best as it is. They ought to be made to suffer; and, besides, there would be no place left for us Moslems with all these corpses about. They will make a stench!”

We spent a night at Enderessi, one day’s journey from Shabin Kara-Hissar. As usual, we had been given for our lodging an empty Armenian house. On the wall there was a pencil scrawl in Turkish: “Our dwelling is on the mountains, we have no longer any need of a roof to cover us; we have already drained the bitter cup of death, we have no more need of a judge.”

The ground floor rooms of the house were still tenanted by the women and children. The gendarmes told us that they would be exiled next morning, but they did not know that yet; they did not know what had become of the men of the house; they were restless, but not yet desperate.

Just after I had gone to sleep, I was awakened by shots in our immediate neighbourhood. The reports followed one another rapidly, and I distinctly heard the words of command. I realised at once what was happening, and actually experienced a feeling of relief at the idea that these poor creatures were now beyond the reach of human cruelty.

Next morning our people told us that ten Armenians had been shot—that was the firing that we had heard—and that the Turkish civilians of the place were now being sent out to chase the fugitives. Indeed, we saw them starting off on horseback with guns. At the roadside were two armed men standing under a tree and dividing between them the clothes of a dead Armenian. We passed a place covered with clotted blood, though the corpses had been removed. It was the 250 roadmaking soldiers, of whom our gendarme had told us.

Once we met a large number of these labourers, who had so far been allowed to do their work in peace. They had been sorted into three gangs—Moslems, Greeks and Armenians. There were several officers with the latter. Our young Hassan exclaimed: “They are all going to be butchered.” We continued our journey, and the road mounted a hill. Then our driver pointed with his whip towards the valley, and we saw that the Armenian gang was being made to stand out of the highroad. There were about 400 of them, and they were being made to line up on the edge of a slope. We know what happened after that.

Two days before we reached Sivas, we again saw the same sight. The soldiers’ bayonets glittered in the sun.

At another place there were ten gendarmes shooting them down, while Turkish workmen were finishing off the victims with knives and stones. Here ten Armenians had succeeded in getting away.

Later on, in the Mission Hospital at Sivas, we came across one of the men who had escaped. He told us that about 100 Armenians had been slaughtered there. Our informant himself had received a terrible wound in the nape of the neck and had fainted. Afterwards he had recovered consciousness and had dragged himself in two days to Sivas.

Twelve hours’ distance from Sivas, we spent the night in a government building. For hours a gendarme, sitting in front of our door, crooned to himself over and over gain: “Ermenleri hep kesdiler—the Armenians have all been killed!” In the next room they were talking on the telephone. We made out that they were giving instructions as to how the Armenians were to be arrested. They were talking chiefly about a certain Ohannes, whom they had not succeeded in finding yet.

One night we slept in an Armenian house where the women had just heard that the men of the family had been condemned to death. It was frightful to hear their cries of anguish. It was no use our trying to speak to them. “Cannot your Emperor help us?” they cried. The gendarme saw the despair on our faces, and said: “Their crying bothers you; I will forbid them to cry.” However, he let himself be mollified. He had taken particular pleasure in pointing out to us all the horrors that we encountered, and he said to young Hassan: “First we kill the Armenians, then the Greeks, then the Kurds.” He would certainly have been delighted to add: “And then the foreigners!” Our Greek driver was the victim of a still more ghastly joke: “Look, down there in the ditch; there are Greeks there too!”

At last we reached Sivas. We had to wait an hour in front of the Government Building before the examination of our papers was completed and we were given permission to go to the Americans. There, too, all was trouble and sorrow.

On the 1st July we left Sivas and reached Kaisaria on the 4th. We had been given permission to go to Talas, after depositing our baggage at the Jesuit School; but when we wanted to go on from Kaisaria, we were refused leave and taken back to the Jesuit School, where a gendarme was posted in front of our door. However, the American Missionaries succeeded in getting us set at liberty.

We then returned to Talas, where we passed several days full of commotion, for there, as well as at Kaisaria, there were many arrests being made. The poor Armenians never knew what the morrow would bring, and then came the terrifying news that all Armenians had been cleared out of Sivas. What happened there and in the villages of the surrounding districts will be reported by the American Mission.

When we discovered that they meant to keep us there—for they had prevented us from joining the Austrians for the journey—we telegraphed to the German Embassy, and so obtained permission to start. There is nothing to tell about this part of our journey, except that the locusts had in places destroyed all the fruit and vegetables, so that the Turks are already beginning to have some experience of the Divine punishment.

63. KAMAKH AND ERZEROUM: STATEMENT[83] PUBLISHED IN THE NEW YORK JOURNAL “GOTCHNAG,” 4th SEPTEMBER, 1915.

The Armenian villages of the Kamakh district have been visited with the most ghastly horrors. The Turks began by perpetrating massacres, and subsequently deported the survivors to various places—the men in one direction and the women in another. The houses and property belonging to the Armenians have been taken possession of by the Turks and Kurds, who have come to this district as refugees from the Vilayet of Van.

The Armenian villages in the plain west of Erzeroum have all been cleared of their inhabitants. After all the men who were physically fit had been mobilised, the remainder were deported. The Armenian houses are being handed over to Turkish immigrants. The Archimandrite Kevork Tourian, Metropolitan of the Armenians of Trebizond, has been brought to Erzeroum, where he will be tried by court-martial.

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Footnote 73:

They were at work in the German hospital at Erzeroum from October, 1914, to April, 1915.—EDITOR.

Footnote 74:

7th June—Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift, November, 1915.

Footnote 75:

Amounting to about 20,000-25,000 people in all—Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift, November, 1915.

Footnote 76:

One of the two authors of the present statement, which has been drafted in the first person by the other witness, but represents the experiences of both. The Editor is in possession of the drafter’s name, but does not know the identity of Sister B., Dr. A., or Mr. G.—EDITOR.

Footnote 77:

A defile, 12 hours’ journey from Erzindjan, where the Euphrates flows through a narrow gorge between two walls of rock.

Footnote 78:

i.e., after the departure of the last convoy of exiles from Erzindjan (10th June), not after the narrators were informed of the massacre by their cook and by the two Armenian girls. The passages about the cobbler, the cook, and the two girls are evidently in parenthesis, and interrupt the sequence of the narrative.—EDITOR.

Footnote 79:

The further details are given in the Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift, November, 1915: “When we exclaimed in horror: ‘So you fire on women and children!’ the soldiers answered: ‘What could we do? It was our orders.’ One of them added: ‘It was a heart-breaking sight. For that matter, I did not shoot.’”—EDITOR.

Footnote 80:

On the evening of the 11th, we saw soldiers returning to town laden with loot. We heard from both Turks and Armenians that children’s corpses were strewn along the road.

Footnote 81:

Every day ten or twelve of the men had been killed and thrown into the ravines.—Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift.

Footnote 82:

This was not the route followed by the convoys of exiles.

Footnote 83:

Source unspecified.

VII. VILAYET OF MAMOURET-UL-AZIZ.

This province lies south-west of Erzindjan, where the Kara-Su bends from west to south and effects its junction with the Mourad-Su, to form the united stream of the Euphrates. The remnant of the convoys from the Vilayet of Erzeroum passed through this district on their way to Mesopotamia, and the Armenian inhabitants of Mamouret-ul-Aziz itself were sent after them in the first weeks of July.

The great advance of the Russians in the winter of 1915-6 brought this province within the immediate war zone, and apparently provoked a second outburst of persecution. On the 24th February, 1916, the Paris journal “Le Temps” published the following telegram from Rome: “According to information that has reached the Vatican, the Turks have carried fire and sword through the region of Mamouret-ul-Aziz, killing all the Christians, including the Catholic Armenian Bishop, Mgr. Ivraklon, who was subjected to prolonged and fearful tortures.”

The name of the town to which most of the documents in this section relate is, for obvious reasons, withheld.

64. H.: STATEMENT MADE BY MISS DA., A DANISH LADY IN THE SERVICE OF THE GERMAN RED CROSS AT H., TO MR. DB. AT BASLE, AND COMMUNICATED BY MR. DB. TO LORD BRYCE.

Sister DA. left the German Red Cross Mission at H. in April, 1916, travelling through Ourfa to Aleppo, and thence by road and railway across Anatolia to Constantinople. Mr. DB. met her at Basle, on her way from Constantinople to Denmark, in the house of a mutual friend.

Sister DA. told Mr. DB. that on the 16th March, 1915, the German Vice-Consul appointed provisionally to Erzeroum (the Consul himself being interned in Russia) was passing through the town of H., accompanied by two German officers, and arranged to dine that evening with the German Red Cross Staff, after paying his respects to the Vali. At the hour fixed, only the two officers appeared. They said that they had called, with the Vice-Consul, upon the Vali, but that after a time the Vali had shewn signs of being irked by their presence, and so they had taken their departure, leaving the Vali and the Vice-Consul together. The company waited for the Vice-Consul about two hours. He arrived about 9.30 p.m., in a state of great agitation, and told them at once the purport of his interview. The Vali had declared to him that the Armenians in Turkey must be, and were going to be, exterminated. They had grown, he said, in wealth and numbers until they had become a menace to the ruling Turkish race; extermination was the only remedy. The Vice-Consul had expostulated and represented that persecution always increased the spiritual vitality of a subject race, and on grounds of expediency was the worst policy for the rulers. “Well, we shall see,” said the Vali, and closed the conversation.

This incident occurred on the 16th March, 1915, and Mr. DB. points out that it must have been practically simultaneous with an interview given by Enver Pasha at Constantinople to the Gregorian Bishop of Konia in the course of February, 1915, Old Style. In this interview the Bishop had asked Enver whether he were satisfied with the conduct of the Armenian soldiers in the Ottoman Army, and Enver had testified warmly to their energy, courage and loyalty—so warmly, in fact, that the Bishop at once asked whether he might publish this testimonial over Enver’s name. Enver readily consented, and the Gregorian Patriarchate at Constantinople accordingly circulated an authorised account of the interview to the Armenian, and even to the Turkish, press.[84] Thus, in the latter part of February, 1915, the Central Government at Constantinople was advertising its friendly feelings towards its Armenian subjects, while by the 16th March, less than a month later, it had given its representative in a remote province to understand that a general massacre of these same Armenians was imminent.

To return to Sister DA.’s narrative—she told Mr. DB. that between February and the beginning of May, 1915, about 400 Armenians had been arrested and imprisoned at H. They were the young men, the strong in body and the intellectuals. Most of their kind had been taken for the Army in the mobilisation of the previous autumn, but these 400 had been left, and were now thrown into prison instead of being conscribed.

At the beginning of May, the Vali of H. sent for the head of the German Protestant Mission Station in the town, and requested him to tell the Armenians that they must surrender their arms. Otherwise, he said, the most stringent measures would be taken against them. The missionaries must persuade them to deliver up the arms quickly. The head of the Mission Station called a meeting of Armenian notables, and put to them what the Vali had said. The Armenians decided to consult with their Turkish fellow-townsmen, and so a mixed meeting was held of all the Turkish and Armenian notables of H. At this meeting the Turkish notables urged the Armenians to give up their arms and promised that, if they did so, they themselves would guarantee their security, and would see that they suffered nothing at the Government’s hands.

This promise induced the Armenians to comply. They collected their arms and presented them to the Vali, but the Vali declared that all had not been brought. The newest and most dangerous weapons, he said, had been in the hands of the 400 prisoners. These must be surrendered also, or the penalties he had threatened would still be inflicted on the whole Armenian community at H. So the notables went to the men in prison, and besought them to reveal where their arms were hidden; all the Gregorian priests went, and the head of the German Mission Station went with them. The 400 were obstinate at first, but it was represented to them that, if they refused, they would be responsible for the destruction of the whole community, and at last they gave in. They revealed the hiding-places, and the arms were duly found and delivered up to the Vali.

The Vali immediately had photographs taken of all the arms collected, and sent them to Constantinople as evidence that an Armenian revolution was on the point of breaking out at H. He asked for a free hand to suppress it, and an order came back from Constantinople that he was to take whatever measures he considered necessary on the spot.

After that, the 400 young men were conveyed out of the town by night and never heard of again. Shots were said to have been heard in the distance.

Three days later, the rest of the Armenian community at H. was summoned by bugle to assemble before the Government Building, and then deported. The men were first sent off in one direction, and later the women and children, on ox-carts, in another. They were only given a few hours to make their preparations, and Sister DA. described their consternation as being terrible. They tried to dispose of their property, which the Turks bought up for practically nothing. Sewing-machines, for instance, sold for two or three piastres (4_d._ to 6_d._). The process of deportation was extended to the whole Vilayet.

The Armenian children in the German Orphanage at H. were sent away with the rest. “My orders,” said the Vali, “are to deport all Armenians. I cannot make an exception of these.” He announced, however, that a Government Orphanage was to be established for any children that remained, and shortly afterwards he called on Sister DA. and asked her to come and visit it. Sister DA. went with him, and found about 700 Armenian children in a good building. For every twelve or fifteen children there was one Armenian nurse, and they were well clothed and fed. “See what care the Government is taking of the Armenians,” the Vali said, and she returned home surprised and pleased; but when she visited the Orphanage again several days later, there were only thirteen of the 700 children left—the rest had disappeared. They had been taken, she learnt, to a lake six hours’ journey by road from the town and drowned. Three hundred fresh children were subsequently collected at the “Orphanage,” and Sister DA. believed that they suffered the same fate as their predecessors. These victims were the residue of the Armenian children at H. The finest boys and prettiest girls had been picked out and carried off by the Turks and Kurds of the district, and it was the remainder, who had been left on the Government’s hands, that were disposed of in this way.

As soon as the Armenians had been deported from H., convoys of other exiles began to pass through from the districts further north. Sister DA. did not see these convoys, because they made a detour round the town, and she never left the town precincts; but she talked with many people who did see them, and they gave a terrible description of their plight. The roads near the town, they said, were littered with the corpses of those who had died of sickness or exhaustion, or from the violence of their guards. And these accounts were confirmed by her own experience last April (1916), on her journey to Aleppo. On the road to Aleppo from Ourfa she passed numbers of corpses lightly buried under a layer of soil. The extremities of the limbs were protruding, and had been gnawed by dogs. She was told by people she met that unheard-of atrocities had been committed, and that there were cases of women who had drowned themselves to escape their tormentors.

It was Sister DA.’s impression that the deportation and massacre of the Armenians had ruined Turkey economically. The Armenians had been the only skilled workers in the country, and industry came to a standstill when they were gone. You could not replace copper vessels for your household; you could not get your roof re-tiled. The Government had actually retained a few Armenian artisans—bakers, masons, &c.—to work for the Army, and whatever work was still done was done by these and by a few others who had gone over to Islam. But though the sources of production were cut off, the Turks had not begun to feel the pinch. Having laid hands on all the property of the Armenians, they were richer, for the moment, than before. During the past year bread had been plentiful and cheap, cattle and meat had been abundant, and there were still enough supplies, she thought, to last for some time yet. Under these circumstances, the Turkish peasantry were well content—except for the women, who resented the absence of their husbands at the war. The dearth of men, Sister DA. said, was everywhere noticeable. She had been told, however, that some Kurdish tribes had refused to furnish recruits, and that the Kizil Bashis of the Dersim had furnished none at all. The Government had been preparing an expedition against the Kizil Bashis to extort a toll of conscripts, but the plan had been thwarted by the Russian advance. In the Turkish villages agricultural work was being largely carried on by the Armenian women and children, who had been handed over to the Moslem peasants by the authorities. Sister DA. saw quantities of them everywhere, practically in the condition of slaves. They were never allowed to rest in peace, but were constantly chivied about from one village to another.

As she came down to Aleppo she found the country under good cultivation. Great stores of bread had been accumulated for the army in Mesopotamia. In Anatolia, on the other hand, the fields were neglected, and she thought that there famine was not far off. But it was not till she reached Constantinople that she found any present scarcity. In the provinces only sugar and petrol had been scarce; at Constantinople all commodities were both scarce and dear.

Sister DA. was told at Constantinople that Turks of all parties were united in their approval of what was being done to the Armenians, and that Enver Pasha openly boasted of it as his personal achievement. Talaat Bey, too, was reported to have remarked, on receiving the news of Vartkes’[85] assassination: “There is no room in the Empire for both Armenians and Turks. Either they had to go or we.”

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Footnote 84:

This incident was communicated to Mr. DB. by DC. Effendi, a gentleman who had held high office under the Ottoman Government till the outbreak of the War.

Footnote 85:

Mr. Vartkes was an Armenian deputy in the Ottoman Parliament, who was murdered, together with another deputy, Mr. Zohrab, when he was being escorted by gendarmes from Aleppo to be court-martialled at Diyarbekir (see Docs. 7 and 9).—EDITOR.

65. H.: REPORT, DATED 11th JULY, 1915, FROM A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT H.; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

If it were simply a matter of being obliged to leave here to go somewhere else, it would not be so bad, but everybody knows that it is a case of going to one’s death. If there was any doubt about it, it has been removed by the arrival of a number of convoys, aggregating several thousand people, from Erzeroum and Erzindjan. I have visited their encampment a number of times, and talked with some of the people. A more pitiable sight cannot be imagined. They are, almost without exception, ragged, filthy, hungry and sick. That is not surprising, in view of the fact that they have been on the road for nearly two months, with no change of clothing, no chance to wash, no shelter and little to eat. The Government has been giving them some scanty rations here. I watched them one time when their food was brought. Wild animals could not be worse. They rushed upon the guards who carried the food, and the guards beat them back with clubs, hitting hard enough to kill them sometimes. To watch them, one could hardly believe that these people were human beings.

As one walks through the camp, mothers offer their children and beg one to take them. In fact, the Turks have been taking their choice of these children and girls for slaves, or worse. In fact, they have even had their doctors there to examine the more likely girls and thus secure the best ones.

There are very few men among them, as most of them have been killed on the road. All tell the same story of having been attacked and robbed by the Kurds. Most of them were attacked over and over again, and a great many of them, especially the men, were killed. Women and children were also killed. Many died, of course, from sickness and exhaustion on the way, and there have been deaths each day that they have been here. Several different parties have arrived, and, after remaining a day or two, have been pushed on with no apparent destination. Those who have reached here are only a small portion, however, of those who started. By continuing to drive these people on in this way, it will be possible to dispose of all of them in a comparatively short time. Among those with whom I have talked were three sisters. They had been educated at —— and spoke excellent English. They said their family was the richest in Erzeroum and numbered twenty-five when they left; but there were now only fourteen survivors. The other eleven, including the husband of one of them and their old grandmother, had been butchered before their eyes by the Kurds. The oldest male survivor of the family was eight years of age. When they left Erzeroum, they had money, horses and personal effects, but they had been robbed of everything, including even their clothing. They said that some of them had been left absolutely naked, and others with only a single garment. When they reached a village, their gendarmes obtained clothes for them from some of the native women. Another girl with whom I talked is the daughter of the Protestant pastor of Erzeroum. She said that every member of her family with her had been killed and that she was left entirely alone. These and some others are a few survivors of the better class of people who have been exiled. They are being detained in an abandoned school-house just outside the town, and no one is allowed to enter it. They said that they were practically in prison, although they were allowed to visit a spring just outside the building. It was there I happened to see them. All the others are camped in a large open field, with no protection at all from the sun.

The condition of these people indicates clearly the fate of those who have left and are about to leave from here. I believe nothing has been heard from any of them as yet, and probably very little will be heard. The system that is being followed seems to be to have bands of Kurds awaiting them on the road, to kill the men especially, and, incidentally, some of the others. The entire movement seems to be the most thoroughly organised and effective massacre this country has ever seen.

Not many men have been spared, however, to accompany those who are being sent into exile, for a more prompt and sure method has been used to dispose of them. Several thousand Armenian men have been arrested during the past few weeks. These have been put in prison, and each time that several hundred had been gathered up in that way they were sent away during the night. The first batch were sent away during the night of the 23rd June. Among them were some of the professors in the College and other prominent Armenians, including the Prelate of the Armenian Gregorian Church. There have been frequent rumours that all of these were killed, and there is little doubt that they were. All Armenian soldiers have likewise been sent away in the same manner. They have been arrested and confined in a building at one end of the town. No distinction has been made between those who had paid their military exemption-tax and those who had not. Their money was accepted, and then they were arrested and sent off with the others. It was said that they were to go somewhere to work on the roads, but no one had heard from them, and that is undoubtedly false.

The fate of all the others has been pretty well established by reliable reports of a similar occurrence on Wednesday, the 7th July. On the Monday many men were arrested, both at H. and G., and put in prison. At daybreak on the Tuesday morning they were taken out and made to march towards an almost uninhabited mountain. There were about eight hundred in all, and they were roped together in groups of fourteen each. That afternoon they arrived in a small Kurdish village, where they were kept overnight in the mosque and other buildings. During all this time they were without food or water. All their money and much of their clothing had been taken from them. On the Wednesday morning they were taken to a valley a few hours distant, where they were all made to sit down. Then the gendarmes began shooting them, until they had killed nearly all of them. Some who had not been killed by bullets were then disposed of with knives and bayonets. A few succeeded in breaking the rope with which they were tied to their companions and running away, but most of these were pursued and killed. A few succeeded in getting away, probably not more than two or three. Among those who were killed was the treasurer of the College. Many other estimable men were among the number. No charge of any kind had ever been made against any of these men. They were simply arrested and killed as part of the general plan to dispose of the Armenian race.

Last night several hundred more men, including both men arrested by the civil authorities and those enrolled as soldiers, were taken in a different direction and murdered in a similar manner. It is said that this happened at a place not two hours distant from here. I shall ride out that way some day when things become a little quieter, and try to verify it for myself.

The same thing has been done systematically in the villages. A few weeks ago about three hundred men were gathered together at AT. and BG., two villages four and five hours distant from here, and then taken up into the mountains and massacred. This seems to be fully established. Many women from those villages have been here since and told about it. There have been rumours of similar occurrences in other places.

There seems to be a definite plan to dispose of all the Armenian men; but, after the departure of the families during the first few days of the enforcement of the order, it was announced that women and children with no men in the family might remain here for the present, and many hoped the worst was over. The American missionaries began considering plans to aid the women and children, who would be left here with no means of support. It was thought that perhaps an orphanage could be opened to care for some of the children, and especially those who had been born in America and then brought here by their parents, and also those who belonged to parents who had been connected in some way with the American mission and schools. There would be plenty of opportunity, although there might not be sufficient means, to care for children who reached here with the exiles from other vilayets, and whose parents had died on the way. I went to see the Vali about this matter yesterday, and was met with a flat refusal. He said we could aid these people if we wished to do so, but the Government was establishing orphanages for the children, and we could not undertake any work of that nature. An hour after I left the Vali, the announcement was made that all the Armenians remaining here, including women and children, must leave on the 13th July.

66. H.: MEMORANDUM[86] FORWARDED BY A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT H. (THE AUTHOR OF THE PRECEDING REPORT); COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

On the 1st June[87], 3,000 people (mostly women, girls and children) left H., accompanied by seventy policemen and a certain Turk of influence, K. Bey. The next day they arrived at AL., safely. Here K. Bey took 400 liras from the people, “in order to keep it safe till their arrival at Malatia,” and promised to accompany them, for their protection, as far as Ourfa; but that same day he ran away with all the money.

The third day the convoy of exiles reached AM. There the Arabs and Kurds began to carry off the women and girls, and this went on till they reached the first railway station at Ras-ul-Ain, on the Bagdad line. The policemen given to them for their protection incited the half-savage tribes of the mountains to attack them in order to rob, kill and violate their women or else carry them away, and they themselves many times violated the women openly.

The fourth day they arrived at AN., where the policemen killed three of the prominent men. The ninth day they came to AO., where the horses, hired and paid for in full for the journey as far as Malatia, were taken and sent back. So they had again to hire ox-carts to carry them to Malatia. Here many were left without any beast of burden, only a few being able to buy donkeys and mules, which were also stolen in their turn.

At AO., a policeman carried off Mrs. L. and her two daughters and ran away.

The thirteenth day the caravan was at Malatia, but for one hour only, for they returned to the village of AP., two hours from Malatia. Here the policemen deserted them altogether, after taking from them about 200 liras in toll for the protection they had given them that far, and the people were left to the mercy of the beastly Bey (claw-chief) of the Kurds of Aghja-Daghi.

On the fifteenth day they were again toiling on their way through the steep mountains, when the Kurds rounded up 150 of the men of all ages from fifteen to ninety years. They took them some distance off and butchered them; then they came back and began to rob the people.

That day another convoy of exiles (only 300 of whom were men) from Sivas[88], Egin and Tokat, joined the convoy from H., thus forming a bigger convoy of 18,000 people in all. They started again on the seventeenth day, under the so-called protection of another Kurdish Bey. This Bey called out his people, who attacked the convoy and plundered them. They carried off five of the prettiest girls and a few Sisters of Grace from Sivas. At night some more girls were stolen, but they were returned after being violated. So the journey began once more, and on the way the pretty girls were carried off one by one, while the stragglers from the convoy were invariably killed. On the twenty-fifth day they reached the village of Geulik, and all the villagers pursued the convoy for a long distance, tormenting and robbing the exiles. On the thirty-second day they found themselves at the village of Kiakhta. Here they remained two days, and again many girls and women were carried off.

On the fortieth day the convoy came in sight of the river Mourad, a branch of the Euphrates. Here they saw the bodies of more than 200 men floating in the river, with traces of blood and blood-stained fezes, clothes and stockings on the banks.

The chief of the neighbouring village took one lira in toll from each man, as a ransom for not being thrown into the river.

On the fifty-second day they arrived at another village, and here the Kurds took from them everything they had, even their shirts and drawers, so that for five days the whole convoy marched completely naked under the scorching sun. For another five days they did not have a morsel of bread, nor even a drop of water. They were scorched to death by thirst. Hundreds upon hundreds fell dead on the way, their tongues were turned to charcoal, and when, at the end of the five days, they reached a fountain, the whole convoy naturally rushed towards it. But here the policemen barred the way and forbade them to take a single drop of water. Their purpose was to sell it at from one to three liras the cup, and sometimes they actually withheld the water after getting the money. At another place, where there were wells, some women threw themselves into them, as there was no rope or pail to draw up the water. These women were drowned, and, in spite of that, the rest of the people drank from that well, the dead bodies still remaining there and stinking in the water. Sometimes, when the wells were shallow and the women could go down into them and come out again, the other people would rush to lick or suck their wet, dirty clothes, in the effort to quench their thirst.

When they passed an Arab village in their naked condition, the Arabs pitied them and gave them old pieces of clothes to cover themselves with. Some of the exiles who still had money bought some clothes; but some still remained who travelled thus naked all the way to the city of Aleppo. The poor women could hardly walk for shame; they walked all bent double.

Even in their nakedness they had found some means of preserving the little money they had. Some kept it in their hair, some in their mouths and some in their wombs; and when the robbers attacked them some were clever enough to search for money in those secret places, and that in a very beastly manner, of course.

On the sixtieth day, when they reached Viran Shehr, only 300 exiles remained out of all the 18,000. On the sixty-fourth day they gathered together all the men and the sick women and children and burned and killed them all. The remainder were ordered to continue on their way. In one day’s journey they reached Ras-ul-Ain, where for two days, for the first time since they started, the Government gave them bread. The bread was uneatable, but for the three succeeding days they did not have even that.

Here a Circassian persuaded the wife of the Pastor of Sivas, as well as some other women, with their children, to go with him to the station, promising to send them to Aleppo by train. In spite of all the warnings of their friends, these women followed the man, as they and their children were no longer capable of finishing the journey on foot. The man took them in the opposite direction from the station, explaining that he would borrow money from his friend, near by, for the tickets; but after a short time he came back to where the convoy was halted. The women and their children were no more.

The governor of the place demanded three liras for himself and one lira for the railway ticket from each of them, before he would let them go by train.

On the seventieth day, when they reached Aleppo, 35 women and children were left out of the 3,000 exiles from H., and 150 women and children altogether out of the whole convoy of 18,000.

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Footnote 86:

Name of author withheld.

Footnote 87:

July?—EDITOR.

Footnote 88:

See Doc. 78.

67. H.: NARRATIVE OF AN ARMENIAN REFUGEE FROM H.; COMMUNICATED TO LORD BRYCE BY THE CORRESPONDENT OF THE LONDON “TIMES” AT BUKAREST.

Much has been written in the Press about the Armenian massacres, and especially about the horrors of the wholesale deportations, by which the Armenians were forcibly removed from their native homes. At the same time no precise or concrete description has yet been given of the monstrous excesses of which the Armenian nation has been the victim. But a young Armenian, an eye-witness who escaped by a miracle from the atrocious butchery at H., has related to us in all their appalling detail the events that took place at this town. His narrative gives a clear idea of the enormity and the ignoble cruelty of the crime committed, not only at H., but in all the other provinces of Armenia. We can easily discern from these facts the criminal tactics of the Young Turkish Government.

“At H.,” says this witness, “the deportation of the Armenians lasted three months. In June the most prominent members of the Dashnaktzoutioun Committee were arrested, including Messrs. DE., DE., DG., DH., and DJ., as well as various others. They were subjected to unheard-of tortures, to extract from them supposed secrets concerning the alleged project of an Armenian revolution. No result was obtained from this inquisition.

“The Armenian population was simple enough to believe that this harsh persecution was only directed against the members of the Dashnaktzoutioun Committee, and it therefore displayed no uneasiness on its own account. But shortly afterwards the arrests were extended in scope and began to assume formidable proportions. All the Armenian young men in the town were arrested and terrorised by infernal torments. About 13,000 Armenian soldiers, too, who were serving among the Ottoman troops at H., were stripped of their arms and transferred to the “Red Palace” at G. They were kept there under stringent guard, and hunger and thirst were left to do their work upon them. The friends and relations of the prisoners were rigorously debarred from any communication with them. A week later all the prisoners were brought out again and despatched to an unknown destination, under a strong escort of gendarmerie with fixed bayonets. They were told that they were going to be transported to Ourfa, to work on the roads and lines of communication, but when they reached BP. Han, near BQ. village, they were all shot and their corpses shovelled into a great trench, which had been specially prepared for them. The majority of the young Armenians who were treated in this way were pupils of the American College, the French College, and the Central Armenian School. Other prisoners were subsequently led away in the same direction in gangs of five and shot. Twenty of these unfortunates succeeded by a miracle in escaping, and have related the details of this awful butchery.

“Next came the turn of the imprisoned members of the Dashnaktzoutioun Committee; but they had guessed the fate that was awaiting them and offered a desperate resistance, which ended in their setting fire to the building in which they were confined, since they preferred being burnt alive to becoming the prey of Turkish barbarity. (There were from twenty-five to thirty of these Dashnakists, but the young refugee was ignorant of their names, with the exception of those which we have mentioned above.)

“In July all Armenian families of any standing in G. were compelled to emigrate. The arrests of the young men had been effected at night time, but the deportation of these wealthy families was carried out in full daylight.

“These exiles from G. were taken to the villages of AN. and AO. On their way they were overtaken by a gendarme riding post-haste with an order from the Vali, which directed the return of a score of individuals among the party. These individuals were taken a distance of twenty kilometres and then slaughtered without pity, like cattle, on the banks of a river and their corpses thrown into the water. As for the rest, the men were separated from the women and cruelly murdered by blows of the axe. The women and girls were carried off by the Kurds and Turks.

“This was followed by the general deportation. The people were deported in several convoys, and in different directions. These convoys were massacred openly and without discrimination, some below the hill of AU., others on the summit of BR. Hill and on Mount BS.

“A few men and women in the service of the Turkish and Kurdish beys were allowed to live until the end of the harvest. The compulsory emigration was even forced upon Armenians who had been converts to Islam since the massacres of 1895. These were deported in October.

“All the professors and schoolmasters were also imprisoned and subsequently assassinated, at the same time as the young men. Those, however, who were connected with German institutions were happily excepted.

“The American Consul did not see fit to intervene in favour of these unfortunates—not even when they were American citizens. We do not know the motive of this passive attitude of his.

“Out of a numerous convoy of exiles from Erzeroum and Erzindjan, nothing but a handful of women and children succeeded in reaching H., after abandoning on their way many of their number who could no longer bear up against the misery and starvation. Those who have reached H. are in an absolutely deplorable condition. They hardly look like human beings, and roam about the streets seeking for a morsel of dry bread, until they fall fainting from exhaustion and are picked up next day half dead by the municipal scavenger carts. These scenes are repeated daily.

“The massacre of the entire population of the Province of Sivas has been effected in the same fashion. Everywhere one passes corpses lying unburied in the open. On my journey I saw heart-rending incidents—women in their last agony lying on the ground with their sucklings, already dead, beside them.

“The Turkish and Kurdish villages are full of Armenian women and girls. Some of the villagers have taken possession of dozens of them. Eimen, the head of the ‘German Oriental Mission,’ remarks, as if that completely justified everything, that now the Armenians will realise for the future the serious consequences of conspiring against Germany and her Allies. A considerable number of Armenians from H. and the neighbourhood have taken refuge among the mountains of Dersim, where the native Kurdish mountaineers have offered them generous hospitality.”

Another Armenian, who succeeded in escaping from Der-el-Zor, in Arabia, describes the miseries endured there by the Armenian women. They are not only suffering from the ravages of disease, but from the lawlessness of the Arabs, who come again and again to snatch victims for their bestial lust.

68. MAMOURET-UL-AZIZ: NARRATIVE OF AN ARMENIAN LADY DEPORTED FROM C. (A PLACE HALF-AN-HOUR’S DISTANCE FROM H.), DESCRIBING HER JOURNEY FROM C. TO RAS-UL-AIN; WRITTEN AFTER HER ESCAPE FROM TURKEY, AND DATED ALEXANDRIA, 2nd NOVEMBER, 1915; PUBLISHED IN THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “GOTCHNAG” OF NEW YORK. 8th JANUARY, 1916.

Shortly after last Easter (1915), the Turkish officials searched the Armenian churches and schools of G., H., C., AQ., AR., AS. and the surrounding villages, but without finding anything incriminating. Afterwards they took the keys of these buildings, and filled them with soldiers. They also searched private houses on the pretence of looking for arms and ammunition, but they did not find anything. After that the Town Crier announced that all arms were to be handed over to the Government, and by this means a number of arms were collected.

After that, they arrested from the town of C. the following persons: Professor B., Mr. H. and his brother J., Mr. O. and his son P., Mr. Q., the brothers R., the brothers S., and T. Effendi, as well as many others, old and young. They took them to the house of V. Agha, stripped them one by one and gave them 300 lashes on their backs. When they fainted, they threw them into a stable and waited until they had revived, in order to beat them again. The men who performed these cruel acts consisted of the following Turks: Commissary (Gendarme) W. Effendi the son of Commissary X., V. Agha, V.’s cousin Y., Z. Agha, Hadji CA. Bey the son of CB. Effendi, CD., and CE. the son of V. Agha. Among the Kurds implicated were the son of CF., CG., etc. The above-mentioned CF.’s son and another Kurd beat Mr. CH. until he was half dead.

After beating T. Effendi in H., and tearing out his finger nails and the flesh of his hands and feet, they put a rope under his arms, dragged him to C., and threw him into prison. Then they entered his house, and, on the pretence of searching it, made his wife, who was in indifferent health, lie on the ground; a soldier sat on her, and they began to beat her on her feet, asking her where they had hidden their arms. After a few days her husband died in the prison.

In C. they beat many young men to get their arms, so that they were obliged to buy arms from the Turks and give them to the Government[89].

When the Government was convinced that they had no more arms to surrender, they stopped tormenting them; but after a few days’ interval they took the young men to G., imprisoned them there for a time, and then deported them in May. Meanwhile the women of C. went to the German missionary, Dr. U., at G. and begged him to defend them. Dr. U. came to C. and spoke in a church; he advised the Armenians to trust the Turks absolutely.

When I was in C. I heard that in H. they had beaten CI. Agha, who subsequently disappeared.

They plucked out the hair and nails of some of the professors. They dug out their eyes and branded them with red hot irons, so that some of them died immediately, and others first lost their reason and died thereafter.

The Bishop of H., CJ., and other prominent Armenians were imprisoned and suffered many cruelties.

On Friday, the 2nd July, they deported part of the Armenians of G. Their destination appeared to be Ourfa via Diyarbekir.

On Saturday, the 3rd July, they deported all Armenians domiciled in the houses belonging to CL. in A. Street, in the town of G. Again their destination was supposed to be Ourfa, but via Malatia in this case.

We ourselves were deported on the 4th July in the direction of Ourfa via Diyarbekir.

The Town Crier proclaimed that on the following Tuesday those from B. and C. Streets in the Town of H. would be deported, on Wednesday the Armenians from AQ., on Thursday those from AR., and so on.

CJ. and two hundred other Armenians were deported ten days before we were, that is on Wednesday, the 23rd June; we do not know their destination. Their party started at midnight. Some of them dropped cards asking for money, and at AT. money was conveyed to them. But the following Monday, the 28th June, when the Armenian women of AT. went to the river, they saw some Turkish women washing blood-stained clothes. The Armenian women took the clothes from the Turkish women and brought them to the Governor at G. The Governor on hearing this went to AT. and found that the Bishop and the 200 Armenians had been killed.

Up to the day we started, the Syrians had not yet been deported, and the women who had no husbands were also allowed to remain, but later on CK. Aghassi said that not a single Armenian would be left. After the Armenians were deported, the Government locked their houses and sealed them up. The men of CL.’s factory were also deported with their families. In C. some of the tradesmen were not deported, as, for example, CM. Agha the son of CN. Agha, the baker CO. and his family, and the two brothers, CP. and CQ. Aghas, the sons of Q. Agha. CQ. Agha became a Moslem, while the father was deported with the Bishop.

All the people of C. started the same day. I think we were about 600 families. We had with us all our cattle and all our property. The first night we reached AU. and slept that night in the fields. The next day we passed many corpses heaped together under bridges and on the road; their blood had collected in pools. Probably these were the Armenians that were killed with the Bishop, for the corpses were all those of men. We spent the night near AV. in a valley, and that night we had to drink water polluted with blood. We promised our guards money if they took us a better road and gave us clean water. The third day they again made us travel past corpses, and on Wednesday we reached A.

The same morning the gendarmes that were accompanying us, W. Effendi and the other Turkish effendis that were with him, put down their chairs in front of our han, and sat down. Then they turned to us and told us that they had received telegrams from H., and that instead of going to Ourfa some of us would go to Yermag and the rest to Severeg, so that our journey would thus be shortened. “Only it is necessary,” they added, “that your men should come and register themselves at the han at A., and state which way they would like to go. Thank the Sultan, who has made your journey shorter.” After these words they all clapped their hands and forced us to do the same. Our men, being simple-minded, were deceived, and they even left their hats and coats to go to the han in question. None of those that went returned. Then the rest of those above 16 years of age and all the old men were arrested and taken to the same place. After this the gendarmes beat the women and forced them to continue their journey. The women said: “We will not go unless our men go with us. You may kill us if you want to.” But the Turkish officials told us that our men would follow us in a little while, and forced the women and children to march on, so they marched on crying and wailing. After half-an-hour’s journey they made us sit in the fields, and all the Turkish officers returned to A. except one. The same day some Arab women (that is, Armenian gipsies) brought us bread, in spite of the officers’ efforts to prevent them, and when they heard that we were crying because our men had been killed, they told us that they had seen them all passing by roped together. Again we went on under the hot burning sun, still crying. The sixth day they made us stop in a Kurdish village, where we spent the night. Next morning we saw that all the gendarmes that had returned to A. had now rejoined the convoy.

Then Gendarme W. Effendi and the other Turks with him beat us and forced us under threat of death to give them all our money and ornaments. They said that, if we did not give them up, they would violate us and exile us to different places. We were afraid, and gave them everything we had. Then they gave us back from five piastres (1Od.) to one medjidia (3s. 2d.) each, at the same time stating that our money and everything else would be returned to us at Diyarbekir, and that they had only taken our jewellery and money for safety.

The ninth day, they took us to the top of a mountain, and the same Effendi and the other gendarmes searched us all over in a shameful manner; they took all the silk-stuffs and everything else of value in our clothes and bedding. Half-an-hour later we reached a Kurdish village. There I met a Turkish soldier from Malatia, called CR., whom I knew. He pitied me, and told me that it was all over with us. “I would advise you,” he said, “to leave your company and look after yourself.”

We were already within a short distance of Diyarbekir when two soldiers came from the Governor, to find out where we had been during the last nine days. Here the gendarmes that were with us took away all our cows and cattle; they also kidnapped one woman and two girls. Outside the walls of Diyarbekir, we had to sit in the burning sun for 24 hours. That same day a number of Turks came from the city and kidnapped our little girls. Towards evening again we went on, still crying; more Turks came to carry off our girls and young brides, and would not let us even open our mouths to protest. Then we left all our cattle and everything we had, to save our honour and our lives. It was already night when the Turks from Diyarbekir attacked us three times and carried off the girls and young brides who had fallen behind. After this we lost all sense of time. The next morning again the gendarmes searched us all over, and then made us march six hours. During these six hours we found no drinking water, and many women sank on the way from thirst and hunger. The third day after that they robbed us, and violated us near a place where there was water. Some days after, two Turks dressed in white coats followed us, and, every time they had a chance, carried off still more of our girls. The wife of CS. Effendi from C. had three daughters, one of whom was married. A coloured gendarme who was with us wanted to take these girls. The mother resisted, and was thrown over a bridge by one of the Turks. The poor woman broke her arm, but her mule-driver dragged her up again. Again the same Turks threw her down, with one of her daughters, from the top of the mountain. The moment the married daughter saw her mother and sister thrown down, she thrust the baby in her arms upon another woman, ran after them crying “Mother, mother!” and threw herself down the same precipice. Some said that one of the Turkish officers went down after them and finished them off. After that Mrs. CS.’s remaining daughter and I disguised ourselves, and, each taking a child in our arms, abandoned everything and walked to Mardin. There our party joined us again. We stayed there eight days. There was an artificial lake there, and every night they opened the sluices and flooded the ground, so that in the panic they might kidnap some of the girls. They also attacked us every night and kidnapped little children. At last, one evening, they drove us on again and left us among the mountains. They wounded a woman because she did not wish to give up her daughter. When they were going to carry off another girl, I asked CT. Tchaoush, a Mardin man, to help us. He stopped them at once, and did not let them take her away. He told us to stay there and not to start until further notice. The Kurds from the surrounding villages attacked us that night. CT. Tchaoush, who was in charge of us, immediately went up on to the heights and harangued them in Kurdish, telling them not to attack us. We were hungry and thirsty, and had no water to drink. CT. took some of our vessels and brought us water from a long way off. The wife of my brother-in-law, the tailor CU., had a baby born that night. The next morning we started again. CT. left some women with her and kept an eye on her from a distance. Then he put the mother and the new-born child on a beast, and brought her to us in safety. Again we marched six hours without water. Here a Turk kidnapped the son of the woman who had been thrown down the mountain side. Finally, in the last stages of hunger and exhaustion, we reached Viran Shehr. Many had already been left on the road.

We had nothing more to eat until we reached Ras-ul-Ain. A fourth part of our convoy had already perished of starvation. Just before reaching Ras-ul-Ain we marched through the whole of one night. We passed three wells choked with corpses up to the brim. The women that went before us encountered three wounded women who crawled out of these wells and asked for bread. These three women went on in our company towards Ras-ul-Ain. Two of them died on the way, and the third was sent to Der-el-Zor with the convoy. It was here that CV., the sister of CW., a girl about 18 or 19 years old, fell down because she could not walk any further. Her mother and sister-in-law kissed her, crying, and left her. We were forced to leave her by herself, because the soldiers would not let any one stay behind with her.

We did not see a single Armenian until we reached Ras-ul-Ain. There we found many deported Armenians who had come from Erzeroum, Egin, Keghi, and other places. They were all on their way to Der-el-Zor. At Ras-ul-Ain we suddenly met CX. Agha of H. He had come from Aleppo to help us. He wanted to save at least a few of the party and take them to Aleppo. He advised us to go to the house of CY. Bey, a Circassian, or to the house of his son-in-law, so that he might convey us into safety from there. At Ras-ul-Ain a great many of the Armenians found refuge in the houses of some Tchetchens (a tribe akin to the Circassians), but afterwards the Government removed them all from the Tchetchens’ houses to deport them to Der-el-Zor. Only my batch, consisting of forty-one people, were left in the house of this CY. Bey, and we were safe here because the Bey and his friends were Government people. The first moment that we saw CX. Agha we thought we had seen an angel from Heaven, and cried to him: “CX. Agha, save us.” When the Tchetchens heard his name, they discovered that he was an Armenian, and immediately attacked him. He was almost killed, but withstood them by his bravery and address; he told them that he had been sent there specially by the Government, and turning immediately to us, he gave us to understand that those who went to CY. Bey’s house would be saved.

CX. Agha took the next train and returned to Aleppo. He tried every means to save us, and after fifteen days he came back. The Circassians (or Tchetchens) endeavoured to force us to become Moslems, but we answered them: “We will throw ourselves into the water and die, but we will not become Moslems.” The Tchetchens were surprised at these words, and said they had never seen people like this, so zealous for their honour and their religion and so devoted to each other. CX. Agha found this out and went to the chief of the Tchetchens; he bribed him, and then, with superb courage, conducted us to the railway one by one, the station being about two miles from where we were. It was Saturday evening when we reached Aleppo. Here for the first time we met some Armenian soldiers, who were almost crazy with joy when they saw us. We could hardly believe they were Armenians, until CX. Agha’s father came after dark with some of these soldiers, carrying no lights, and took us to the Armenian Church. There they told us that if the Government should discover us and inquire how we came, we were to tell them that we had travelled at our own expense. They immediately brought us bread; we had not eaten anything for twenty-four hours. There were a number of deported Armenians in the Church; they came from different places and had been travelling for four months. They were so exhausted that about forty of them were dying every day. The priest who performed the ceremony could not drag himself home. From the deported Armenians in Aleppo we learned that the husbands of many of the women had been roped together and taken to Sheitan Deressi (Devil’s Valley)[90], where they were slaughtered with axes and knives. Here we gave up all hope of seeing our husbands again, being convinced that they were all killed. We heard that in some places they made the Armenians dig their own graves before they killed them. An Armenian soldier from Tchemesh-Getzak told me that the Turks were killing the Armenians and throwing them into the Euphrates, when six of them managed to cross the river and get away, after three days’ journey through country littered with corpses.

On Sunday morning I went to see the American Consul at Aleppo, and asked him to save me, as I was an American citizen. He asked me where my papers were. I told him they were taken from me on the way; I told him all the circumstances, and he promised to help me. I went to him again the next day and told him how my parents were American citizens, and my husband also, and how my husband had lived in America for 18 years; I told him he could prove it by asking the American Consul at H. or even the Washington Government. After five days had passed, he sent for me and made me tell my story in the Turkish language. He put my name in his book, and placed me in his kavass’s house. Then he gave me a passport and sent me to Alexandretta in the company of some Russian subjects. We stayed fifteen days in Alexandretta. From there we reached Alexandria on board the American cruiser “Chester,” on the 22nd September, 1915.

While I was in Ras-ul-Ain, we saw some Armenian girls in the houses of some Tchetchens. One of them was married to one of the Tchetchens. They begged us not to forget them if we were ever saved. J. Agha’s wife and children reached Ras-ul-Ain. A Kurd came and said to them: “I am from the village of Karer; you come with me, and I will take you to Karer until the end of the war.” They believed him, and went to his house. Afterwards CX. Agha tried to save them, but they had already gone. H. Agha’s wife and three daughters went to Der-el-Zor.

The Turkish Government did not provide any food for us on the way; one day only, at Diyarbekir, they gave us one loaf each, and again for about eight days at Mardin, but the bread was so hard that it cut our mouths. The son of Prof. B., his married daughter, and his future daughter-in-law, as well as the wife and two daughters of Mr. CZ., reached Aleppo in safety. CC. Agha’s daughter and his little boy were kidnapped by the Turks. Only two of the boys were left with the mother, who reached Aleppo safely. Besides the gendarmes, Kurdish irregulars also followed us on the way, to kill those that were left behind. The clothes of those who underwent this deportation were all rotted by the end of the journey, and the exiles themselves had almost lost their reason. When they were given new clothes they did not know how to put them on, and when their hair was washed it came off bodily from their scalps.

69. H.: STATEMENT BY THE PRINCIPAL OF THE COLLEGE, DATED 19th JULY, 1915; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

I shall try to banish from my mind for the time the sense of great personal sorrow at losing hundreds of my friends here, and also my sense of utter defeat in being so unable to stop the awful tragedy or even mitigate to any degree its severity, and compel myself to give you concisely some of the cold facts of the past months, as they relate themselves to the College. I do so with the hope that the possession of these concrete facts may help you to do something there for the handful of dependants still left to us here.

Building.s—Seven of our big buildings are in the hands of the Government, only one remaining in our hands. The seven buildings in question are empty, except for twenty guards who are stationed there. I cannot tell you exactly the amount of loss we have sustained in money by robberies, breakages and other means, and there is no sign that the Turks will ever return these buildings to us.

Constituency.—Approximately two-thirds of the girl pupils and six-sevenths of the boys have been taken away to death, exile or Moslem homes.

Professors.—Four gone, three left, as follows:—

Professor A.—Served College 35 years; representative of the Americans with the Government, Protestant “Askabed,” Professor of Turkish and History. Besides previous trouble, arrested May 1st without charge; hair of head, moustache and beard pulled out, in vain effort to secure damaging confessions; starved and hung by arms for a day and a night, and severely beaten several times; taken out towards Diyarbekir about June 20th, and murdered in general massacre on the road.

Professor B.—Served College 33 years, studied at Ann Arbor, Professor of Mathematics. Arrested about June 5th, and shared Prof. A.’s fate on the road.

Professor C.—Taken to witness a man beaten almost to death; became mentally deranged; started with his family about July 5th into exile under guard, and murdered beyond Malatia. Principal of Preparatory Department; studied at Princeton; served College 20 years.

Professor D.—Served College 16 years, studied at Edinburgh; Professor of Mental and Moral Science. Arrested with Prof. A. and suffered same tortures; also had three finger nails pulled out by the roots; killed in same massacre.

Professor E.—Served College 25 years. Arrested May 1st; not tortured, but sick in prison; sent to Red Crescent Hospital, and after paying large bribes is now free.

Professor F.—Served College for over 15 years, studied in Stuttgart and Berlin, Professor of Music. Escaped arrest and torture, and thus far escaped exile and death, because of favour with the Kaimakam secured by personal services rendered.

Professor G.—Served College about 15 years, studied at Cornell and Yale (M.S.), Professor of Biology. Arrested about June 5th, beaten about the hands, body and head with a stick by the Kaimakam himself, who, when tired, called on all who loved religion and the nation to continue the beating; after a period of insensibility in a dark closet, taken to the Red Crescent Hospital with a broken finger and serious bruises. Now free.

Instructors, Male.—Four reported killed on the road in various massacres, whose average term of service is eight years.

Three not heard from, probably killed on the road; average term of service in the College, four years.

Two sick in the American Hospital.

One elsewhere.

One, engaged in cabinet work for the Kaimakam, free.

One, owner of house occupied by the Kaimakam, free.

Instructors, Female.—One reported killed in F.; served the College over 20 years.

One reported taken to a Turkish harem.

Three not heard from.

Four started out as exiles.

Ten free.

Total Loss.—About seven-eighths of the buildings, three-quarters of the students, and half the teaching staff.

Of the Armenian people as a whole we may estimate that three-fourths are gone, and this three-fourths includes the leaders in every walk of life—merchants, professional men, preachers, bishops and government officials. And there is no certainty for those who are just now free. The Vali has said that all must go. It is only temporary measures, such as bribes or special favours, that have secured postponement. Since we know the fate to which they go, since we have seen the pitiable plight of the stragglers who have survived the journey from Erzindjan and Erzeroum, since we find ourselves forbidden to aid them except in insignificant ways, and since we are forbidden to accompany them to aid them on the way, we are the more eager, if possible, to save those who are left with us.

It seems to us possible that something can be done to save these few. Permission has recently been obtained through the German Embassy for those connected with the German Mission, teachers and their families, orphans and servants, a circle of several hundred, to remain in G. I therefore beg of you to take what steps are possible to secure the permission through our Ambassador for the handful of dependants still with us to remain in H.

If such permission is not secured, we shall probably be called upon to see the very members of our households dragged off to decorate the harems of those who have not as yet secured as many girl slaves as they wish. Nothing can be done locally. The Kaimakam and his coterie in H. are more powerful here than the Vali, and take pleasure in flaunting our impotence in our faces.

I have said enough. Our hearts are sick with these sights and stories of abject terror and suffering. The extermination of the race seems to be the objective, and the means employed are more fiendish than could be concocted locally. The orders are from headquarters, and any reprieve must be from the same source.

70. H.: STATEMENT BY THE PRINCIPAL OF THE COLLEGE, DATED 19th JULY, 1915, RELATING TO THE DEPORTATION OF ARMENIANS FROM VILLAGES IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF H.; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

From the village of E., 212 individuals set out, of whom 128 (60 per cent.) reached Aleppo alive; 56 men and 11 women were killed on the road, 3 girls and 9 boys were sold or kidnapped, and 5 people were missing.

From the same place another party of 696 people were deported; 321 (46 per cent.) reached Aleppo; 206 men and 57 women were killed en route; 70 girls and young women and 19 boys were sold; 23 were missing.

From the village of D. a party of 128 were deported, of whom 32 (25 per cent.) reached Aleppo alive; 24 men and 12 women were killed en route; 29 girls and young women and 13 boys were sold; and 18 were missing.

71. H.: LETTER DATED 10th NOVEMBER, 1915, FROM THE PRINCIPAL OF THE COLLEGE AT H. TO MR. N. AT CONSTANTINOPLE; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

The difficulty of securing local permission to start out for America, as well as the scarcity of wagons, has delayed our party for some days. We have been grateful, in the meantime, that we have heard from you approving our plans. We hope to start in a day or two. We do not anticipate the journey with relish, but we feel that it will be better to go now than to wait. I am apprehensive for those who stay, though nothing definite threatens citizens of our country at present.

Following your circulars of information as to the attitude of the authorities at the capital, we opened our girls’ department two weeks ago, and planned soon to open the boys’ department also. The registration of the girls reached about 150, of which number about one-third are in the kindergarten. More than another third are boarders, mostly those who have been with us from the time school closed. There are very few day-pupils above primary age.

Last Thursday afternoon, the 4th November, a raid was suddenly made on the Armenian population. Men, women and children were arrested that afternoon in G. and taken to the police station. The next morning the same thing occurred here in H. Most of those arrested in H. were women and children, and they were nearly all of them released the same day, when they showed their papers. In G., however, many were kept over a day or two and then sent off on the road, probably to be butchered as other parties had been. The season is now so late that it is preposterous to suppose a safe journey to be possible when the exiles are allowed no preparation whatever. By far the largest number sent off seem to have been from the villages, where the people were pretty well cleared out. Estimates run as high as a thousand for those who were sent off in one night.

The panic resulting from this wholly unexpected raid can hardly be pictured. Those pupils who were coming to us from outside have stopped coming pretty largely, and many advise us to close the school. Those exiles who had managed in various ways to escape from the convoys and had settled down to normal life, are now plunged in terror. We have had to guard our gates and walls to prevent the public from pouring in on us.

During this recent event the Government has turned its attention to us once more. On Friday the police came, with a sufficient force, to arrest all the men on our premises. They were polite, but expressed the belief that we were hiding many. I went with the handful of men and boys available, and the next day my brother presented those who were not in evidence that day, and they were all sent back to our premises safely. The Commandant personally asked the Consul to write to us and warn us against harbouring any fugitives in our grounds. We assured him that it had been our settled policy all along to refuse such requests, and that we had no such persons with us. The Kaimakam refused to believe that we had no fugitives with us, but I think he has been persuaded more or less of the truth of this. Two of our teachers, who live in their own houses off from our compound, did not appear on Friday before the police. Afterwards, when they found that the others had been released, they also appeared. They were then put in prison, where they still remain. One of them, I hope, will soon be released, but I have fears for the other, because he was so intimately connected with the former Kaimakam, and there seems to be evidence against him that he was a tool in securing bribes for the said Kaimakam—of course under fear of death.

We have had frequent interviews with the Kaimakam and the Commandant, who is locum tenens for the Vali at present. Both of them have been courteous, and assure us that there are no further measures in store for those who have been allowed to stay by order of the Government. But our faith in such promises has been sadly shaken this summer. At two different times the Kaimakam has said that Armenian was no more to be taught in our schools. We have expressed our desire to make the language of the school English, and have assured him that we are working to that end.

As I wrote to you, our curriculum has been submitted to the Mearif, and has been largely approved verbally. We are still in correspondence over some minor details regarding texts. We shall not be able to open work for the few boys who are available at the present, and I confess my deep apprehension lest they and their male teachers should all be rounded up, to go the same road that their comrades followed in July.

It is hard for us to leave just at this juncture. Yet there seems no advantage in our staying compared with the difficulties of leaving later. We shall try to keep you informed of our curriculum.

VIII. VILAYET OF TREBIZOND, AND SANDJAK OF SHABIN KARA-HISSAR.

The Vilayet of Trebizond lies between Erzeroum and the Black Sea, and consists of a long, narrow littoral, shut off from its hinterland by a wall of mountains on the south. The town of Shabin Kara-Hissar is situated about seventy miles west of Baibourt, near the upper course of the Kelkid Irmak.

The population of this region is very mixed. The substratum is Lazic (a Caucasian race) and Greek; but advanced guards of the Kurdish migration have penetrated into the mountains overlooking the coast, while the towns and ports have been occupied, since the Ottoman conquest in the fifteenth century, by large colonies of Armenians and Turks, who lived there peaceably side by side for four centuries—until June, 1915.

The deportations began in the last week of that month. Their nominal destination was the same as that of the convoys from the Vilayet of Erzeroum, but in this case there seems never to have been any intention of conducting the Armenians alive to their journey’s end. At Trebizond, a number of them were herded on to boats and drowned in the open sea. Such convoys as started by land were massacred within a day’s journey of the city, and their fate was shared by the convoys from Kerasond. The Armenians of Shabin Kara-Hissar took warning, and resisted the Government’s decree. Troops were sent against them, and every Armenian in the town and district was put to the sword.

72. TREBIZOND: REPORT FROM A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT TREBIZOND, COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

Passages included between brackets are inserted from the version of the same document published in the brochure “Quelques Documents sur le Sort des Armeniens, 1915” (Geneva, 1915).

On Saturday, the 26th June, the proclamation regarding the deportation of all Armenians was posted in the streets. On Thursday, the 1st July, all the streets were guarded by gendarmes with fixed bayonets, and the work of driving the Armenians from their homes began. Groups of men, women and children, with loads and bundles on their backs, were collected in a short cross-street near my residence, and when a hundred or so had been gathered, they were driven past my residence on the road toward ——, in the heat and dust, by gendarmes with fixed bayonets. They were held outside the city until a group of about 2,000 had been collected, and then sent on. Three such groups, making about 6,000 altogether, were sent from here during the first three days; and smaller groups from —— and the vicinity, sent later, amounted to about 4,000 more.

The weeping and wailing of the women and children was most heart-rending. Some of these people were from wealthy and refined circles. Some were accustomed to luxury and ease. There were clergymen, merchants, bankers, lawyers, mechanics, tailors, and men from every walk of life. The Governor-General told me that they were allowed to make arrangements for carriages, but nobody seemed to be making any arrangements. I know of one wealthy merchant, however, who paid £15 Turkish (about £13 10s. sterling) for a carriage to take himself and wife to ——, and when he arrived at the station where they were being collected, at ——, about ten minutes’ distance from the city, they were commanded by the gendarmes to leave the carriage, which was sent back to the city.

The whole Mohammedan population knew that these people were to be their prey from the beginning, and they were treated as criminals. In the first place, from the date of the proclamation, the 25th June, no Armenian was allowed to sell anything, and everybody was forbidden, under penalty, to buy anything from them. How, then, were they to provide funds for the journey? For six or eight months there has been no business whatever in Trebizond, and people have been eating up their capital. Why should they have been prohibited from selling rugs or anything they had to sell, to secure the needed money for the journey? Many persons who had goods which they could have sold if they had been allowed to do so, were obliged to start off on foot without funds and with what they could gather up from their homes and carry on their backs. Such persons naturally soon became so weak that they fell behind and were bayoneted and thrown into the river, and their bodies floated down past Trebizond to the sea, or lodged in the shallow river on rocks, where they remained for ten or twelve days and putrefied, to the disgust of travellers who were obliged to pass that way. I have talked with eye-witnesses, who state that there were many naked bodies to be seen on snags in the river fifteen days after the affair occurred, and that the smell was something terrible.

On the 17th July, while I was out on a ride with a German resident, we came across three Turks digging a grave in the sand for a naked body which we saw in the river near by. The corpse looked as though it had been in the water for ten days or more. The Turks said they had just buried four more further up the river. Another Turk told us that a body had floated down the river and out into the sea a few moments before we arrived.

By the 6th July (Tuesday) all the Armenian houses in Trebizond, about 1,000, had been emptied of their inhabitants and the people sent off. There was no inquiry as to who were guilty or who were innocent of any movement against the Government. If a person was an Armenian, that was sufficient reason for his being treated as a criminal and deported. At first all were to go except the sick, who were taken to the municipal hospital until they were well enough to go. Later, an exception was made for old men and women, pregnant women, children, those in Government employment and members of the Roman Catholic Church. Finally it was decided that the old men and women and the Catholics must go too, and they were sent along towards the last. A number of lighters have been loaded with people at different times and sent off towards <Samsoun>. It is generally believed that such persons were drowned. During the early days, before the deportation commenced, a large caique or lighter was loaded with men supposed to be members of the Armenian Committee, and sent off towards <Samsoun>. Two days later, <a certain Vartan,> a Russian subject, who had been one of those who started in the boat, returned overland to Trebizond, badly wounded about the head and so crazy that he could not make himself understood. All he could say was “Boom, boom.” He was arrested by the authorities and taken to the municipal hospital, where he died the following day. A Turk said that this boat was met not far from Trebizond by another boat containing gendarmes, who proceeded to kill all the men and throw them overboard. They thought they had killed them all, but this Russian, who was big and powerful, was only wounded and swam ashore unnoticed. A number of such caiques have left Trebizond loaded with men, and usually they return empty after a few hours.

Totz, a village about two hours from Trebizond, is inhabited by Gregorian and Catholic Armenians and Turks. Here, according to a reliable witness, a wealthy and influential Armenian, <Boghos Marimian,> and his two sons were placed one behind the other and shot through. Forty-five men and women were taken a short distance from the village into a valley. <The wife and daughters of an Armenian named Artes>[91] were first outraged by the officers of the gendarmerie, and then turned over to the gendarmes to dispose of. According to this witness, a child was killed by beating its brains out on a rock. The men were all killed, and not a single person survived from this batch of forty-five.

The plan to save the children by placing them in schools or orphanages in Trebizond, under the care of a committee organized and supported by the Greek Archbishop, of which the Vali was president and the Archbishop vice-president, with three Mohammedan and three Christian members, has been abandoned, and the girls are now being given exclusively to Mohammedan families and thus scattered[92]. The suppression of the orphanages and the scattering of the children was a great disappointment to us and to the Greek Archbishop, who had worked hard for the plan and secured the support of the Vali; but <Nail Bey,> the local head of the Committee of Union and Progress, who was opposed to the plan, succeeded in thwarting it very quickly. Many of the boys appear to have been sent to ——, to be distributed among the farmers. The best looking of the older girls, who were retained as caretakers in these orphanages, are kept in houses for the pleasure of members of the gang which seems to rule affairs here. I hear on good authority that a member of the Committee of Union and Progress here has ten of the handsomest girls in a house in the central part of the city, for the use of himself and his friends. Some of the younger girls have been taken into respectable Mohammedan houses. Several of the former pupils of the American Mission are now in Mohammedan homes near the Mission, and have not been visited by <Nail Bey,> but of course the majority of them are not so fortunate.

The 1,000 Armenian houses are being emptied of furniture by the police one after the other. The furniture, bedding and everything of value is being stored in large buildings about the city. There is no attempt at classification, and the idea of keeping the property in “bales under the protection of the Government, to be returned to the owners on their return,” is simply ridiculous. The goods are piled in without any attempt at labelling or systematic storage. A crowd of Turkish women and children follow the police about like a lot of vultures, and seize anything they can lay their hands on, and when the more valuable things are carried out of a house by the police, they rush in and take the balance. I see this performance every day with my own eyes. I suppose it will take several weeks to empty all the houses, and then the Armenian shops and stores will be cleared out. The commission which has this matter in hand is now talking of selling this great collection of household goods and properties, in order to pay the debts of the Armenians. The German Consul told me that he did not believe the Armenians would be permitted to return to Trebizond, even after the end of the war.

<Arab merchants, under British protection, were included in the deportation, as well as all Armenians with Russian, Persian or Bulgarian passports. Ovhannes Arabian, the Dragoman of the British Consulate, could take nothing with him but the clothes he stood in.>

I have just been talking with a young man who has been performing his military service on the “inshaat tabouri” (construction regiment), working on the roads out toward Gumushkhané. He told me that 15 days ago all the Armenians, about 180, were separated from the other workmen, marched off some distance from the camp and shot. He heard the report of the rifles and later was one of the number sent to bury the bodies, which he stated were all naked, having been stripped of clothing.

A number of bodies of women and children have lately been thrown up by the sea upon the sandy beach below the walls of the Italian Monastery here in Trebizond, and were buried by Greek women in the sand where they were found.

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Footnote 89:

See Docs. 82, 94 and 122.

Footnote 90:

See Doc. 9, page 21.

Footnote 91:

“The women.”—American version.

Footnote 92:

The origination of this plan is recorded in an earlier (undated) report from the same hand, from which the following sentences are a quotation:—

“The children attending the American school conducted by ——, also those children left with them by persons being deported, have all been taken and placed in a school organised by a local committee, of which the Vali is president and the Greek Metropolitan vice-president. Into this school all the Armenian children, females up to fifteen years and males to ten years of age, are being placed as soon as the parents are sent off. Children above these ages go with their parents.”

73. TREBIZOND: EXTRACTS FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH COMM. G. GORRINI, LATE ITALIAN CONSUL-GENERAL AT TREBIZOND[93]. OF ROME, 25th AUGUST, 1915.

For over four years I was Consul-General at Trebizond, with jurisdiction over practically the whole Black Sea littoral, from the Russo-Turkish frontier to the neighbourhood of Constantinople, and over five provinces in the interior of Asia Minor (Eastern Anatolia, Armenia and Kurdistan)—districts chiefly inhabited by Turks, Armenians and Kurds, with a considerable sprinkling of Persians, Russians, Greeks and Arabs. For the last ten months, moreover, I had also been responsible for the protection of the very numerous Russian subjects and Russian interests, as well as the Greek and Montenegrin, and also, to some extent, the French, the English, and the American, with others of minor account....

As for the present internal condition of the Ottoman Empire, I can only answer for my own district. In my district the present condition of things is almost desperate. The population is showing true Moslem resignation in the way it is bearing the existing situation—the ruin and desolation of individuals and community, the holocaust of all and everything for a war which no one desired, but which was forced upon them by Enver Pasha, and which will lead to the ruin and dismemberment of all that still remains of the Ottoman Empire. But the Moslem and Christian populations can do nothing more—they have reached the extreme limit of their effort. The oxygen is being administered by the Germans, who are trying to prolong the agony of the dying Empire, but will not be able to perform the miracle of restoring life to a corpse. Apart from a few lunatics, a speedy peace, even if it involves the foreign occupation of Ottoman territory, is the prayer of all. There is no courage for a rebellion. The Germans and the “Committee of Union and Progress” are hated and detested by all, but only in the intimacy of the heart and in confidential conversation, for the Germans and the Committee constitute the one genuine, solid organisation at present existing in Turkey—a masterly and most rigorous organisation, which does not hesitate to use any weapon whatever; an organisation of audacity, of terror, and of mysterious, ferocious revenge....

As for the Armenians, they were treated differently in the different vilayets. They were suspect and spied upon everywhere, but they suffered a real extermination, worse than massacre, in the so-called “Armenian Vilayets.” There are seven of these, and five of them (including the most important and most thickly populated) unhappily for me formed part of my own Consular jurisdiction. These were the Vilayets of Trebizond, Erzeroum, Van, Bitlis and Sivas.

In my district, from the 24th June onwards, the Armenians were all “interned”—that is, ejected by force from their various residences and despatched under the guard of the gendarmerie to distant, unknown destinations, which for a few will mean the interior of Mesopotamia, but for four-fifths of them has meant already a death accompanied by unheard-of cruelties.

The official proclamation of internment came from Constantinople. It is the work of the Central Government and the “Committee of Union and Progress.” The local authorities, and indeed the Moslem population in general, tried to resist, to mitigate it, to make omissions, to hush it up. But the orders of the Central Government were categorically confirmed, and all were compelled to resign themselves and obey.

The Consular Body intervened, and attempted to save at least the women and children. We did, in fact, secure numerous exemptions, but these were not subsequently respected, owing to the interference of the local branch of the “Union and Progress Committee” and to fresh orders from Constantinople.

It was a real extermination and slaughter of the innocents, an unheard-of thing, a black page stained with the flagrant violation of the most sacred rights of humanity, of Christianity, of nationality. The Armenian Catholics, too, who in the past had always been respected and excepted from the massacres and persecutions, were this time treated worse than any—again by the orders of the Central Government. There were about 14,000 Armenians at Trebizond—Gregorians, Catholics, and Protestants. They had never caused disorders or given occasion for collective measures of police. When I left Trebizond, not a hundred of them remained.

From the 24th June, the date of the publication of the infamous decree, until the 23rd July, the date of my own departure from Trebizond, I no longer slept or ate; I was given over to nerves and nausea, so terrible was the torment of having to look on at the wholesale execution of these defenceless, innocent creatures.

The passing of the gangs of Armenian exiles beneath the windows and before the door of the Consulate; their prayers for help, when neither I nor any other could do anything to answer them; the city in a state of siege, guarded at every point by 15,000 troops in complete war equipment, by thousands of police agents, by bands of volunteers and by the members of the “Committee of Union and Progress”; the lamentations, the tears, the abandonments, the imprecations, the many suicides, the instantaneous deaths from sheer terror, the sudden unhingeing of men’s reason, the conflagrations, the shooting of victims in the city, the ruthless searches through the houses and in the countryside; the hundreds of corpses found every day along the exile road; the young women converted by force to Islam or exiled like the rest; the children, torn away from their families or from the Christian schools, and handed over by force to Moslem families, or else placed by hundreds on board ship in nothing but their shirts, and then capsized and drowned in the Black Sea and the River Deyirmen Deré—these are my last ineffaceable memories of Trebizond, memories which still, at a month’s distance, torment my soul and almost drive me frantic. When one has had to look on for a whole month at such horrors, at such protracted tortures, with absolutely no power of acting as one longed to act, the question naturally and spontaneously suggests itself, whether all the cannibals and all the wild beasts in the world have not left their hiding places and retreats, left the virgin forests of Africa, Asia, America and Oceania, to make their rendezvous at Stamboul. I should prefer to close our interview at this point, with the solemn asseveration that this black page in Turkey’s history calls for the most uncompromising reproach and for the vengeance of all Christendom. If they knew all the things that I know, all that I have had to see with my eyes and hear with my ears, all Christian powers that are still neutral would be impelled to rise up against Turkey and cry anathema against her inhuman Government and her ferocious “Committee of Union and Progress,” and they would extend the responsibility to Turkey’s Allies, who tolerate or even shield with their strong arm these execrable crimes, which have not their equal in history, either modern or ancient. Shame, horror and disgrace!

74. TREBIZOND: NARRATIVE OF THE MONTENEGRIN KAVASS OF THE LOCAL BRANCH OF THE OTTOMAN BANK, PUBLISHED IN THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “AREV” OF ALEXANDRIA, 2nd OCTOBER, 1915.

The Kavass of the Local Branch of the Ottoman Bank at Trebizond, a Montenegrin, who left Trebizond in Signor Gorrini’s company[94] and is at the present moment in Cairo, has made the following statement to Mr. Malezian, Secretary of the General Armenian Union of Benevolence:—

“The very evening of the day on which the order arrived from Constantinople, they threw into the sea about forty of the intellectuals and the members of political parties, saying to them: ‘You are to be sent into exile by the sea route.’

“At the present moment there is not a single Armenian left at Trebizond except two employees of the Ottoman Bank, who will also be deported as soon as other persons arrive from Constantinople to take their place.

“Children have been converted to Islam and handed over to Mohammedan families. Those who cry and do not keep quiet have their throats cut.

“After the Armenians had gone, their houses were confiscated.

“The whole thing was organized by the members of the Committee of Union and Progress.

“The exiles were not allowed to take with them either money or clothes or provisions. Five hundred Armenian soldiers were disarmed, and then deported and massacred on the road. As for the other exiles, they must have been massacred without exception, for the news received from Djevizlik (a village six hours from Trebizond, on the one and only road leading to Gumushkhané) makes it certain that the exiles were seen passing that place in batches, while beyond Djevizlik no one has seen them pass. At the same time, the river Yel-Deyirmeni brought down every day to the sea a number of corpses, mutilated and absolutely naked, the women with their breasts cut off.”

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Footnote 93:

Signor Gorrini left Trebizond on the 23rd July, 1915, in the interval between the Italian declarations of war against Austria-Hungary and against Turkey. He hired an open motor-launch with a Lazic skipper and crew, and took with him two servants and the Montenegrin Kavass of the local branch of the Ottoman Bank. The coastwise voyage from Trebizond to Constantinople took seven days and nights. They touched at Kerasond, Samsoun, Sinope, Ineboli, Kidros, Zonguldak, Zacharia, Chilé and Faro d’Anatolia, without landing, however, at any of these places. From Constantinople Signor Gorrini travelled via Dedeagatch and Palermo to Rome, where he gave this interview to the representative of “Il Messaggero.”

Footnote 94:

“I hired the motor launch for myself and three members of my household, one of them a Montenegrin kavass who was under our protection.—The Italian Consul, Signor Gorrini, in the interview published in the Rome journal “Il Messaggero,” 25th August, 1915.

75. KERASOND (KIRESOUN), TREBIZOND AND SHABIN KARA-HISSAR: EVIDENCE COLLECTED BY AN ARMENIAN GENTLEMAN FROM EYE-WITNESSES NOW IN ROUMANIA; COMMUNICATED BY THE CORRESPONDENT OF THE LONDON “TIMES” AT BUKAREST.

Kerasond.—Much has been written lately about the Armenian massacres in Turkey, but it is only now that we are receiving more precise and detailed information, from eye-witnesses who, by some means or other, have escaped the scene of the most horrible atrocities ever known in this world.

The atrocities of Kerasond are described by a prominent Greek of that town, who succeeded in obtaining a passage on board a Greek ship bound for Roumania with a cargo of nuts. On her voyage across the Black Sea, this ship was met by two Russian torpedo boats, which took on board the crew and this gentleman among them, sank the ship, transported the crew to Sevastopol, and there set them free. This gentleman had been an eye-witness of all that happened in Kerasond, and he describes the atrocities as follows:—

“It is impossible to express in words the humiliations and atrocities that the Armenians of Kerasond have had to undergo. One morning the Government announced, through the public crier, that every male Armenian, old or young, must immediately go to the Government Building, where an important communication was to be made to them. Those who neglected to comply with this order were threatened with imprisonment. The Armenians obeyed, as there was no alternative in a town where they were in minority; but as soon as they had arrived at the Government Building, they were surrounded by hundreds of gendarmes and driven straight to prison. At mid-day their families, seeing that nobody returned, collected together and went in a body to the Government Building. They demanded that their husbands should be set free. The gendarmes replied with the bayonet, and dispersed the crowd, while those who still insisted in their protest were sent to join their husbands in prison. That night was passed by the poor Armenians in the prison, while all night long their families mourned and wept. I visited several Armenian neighbours and tried to calm them, but they were all convinced that they would never see their people again, as they had guessed latterly, from the attitude of the Turks, that some plot was being prepared against them. Next morning the prisoners were told that they were to be exiled to Kara-Hissar (a town inland from Kerasond) and that they were only to take with them provisions for five days. Their wives were notified of this, and in the afternoon, under the escort of hundreds of gendarmes, they were marched out of the prison on to the road leading to Kara-Hissar, and divided up into several separate batches. Several days passed, and then a few telegrams reached various families, signed by their husbands or brothers and announcing that they had arrived in safety at Kara-Hissar. But unfortunately these telegrams were merely forged by the Government in order to calm down those left behind, who had not yet ceased to demand the return of their dear ones. Their true fate was very different. A fortnight later, I met a friend who told me that he had given protection to a young Armenian who had escaped from the party of Armenians that were sent to Kara-Hissar, and that this young man gave horrible descriptions of their experiences. I went to see this young man at my friend’s house. He was an honest business man in the town, so that I do not question for a moment the honesty of his declaration in the present case, which he made to the following effect:—

“Our party consisted of 350 men, mostly young fellows. The next day after our departure from Kerasond, we reached a spot on the banks of the River Kara Su. It was lunch time, and the gendarmes ordered us to stop and eat. We had just begun to do so when guns were fired on us from all sides, and I saw many fall dead. I was wounded myself in the arm and collapsed on my side from the pain. The firing continued, and I fainted. I only recovered consciousness to find myself in the river with hundreds of dead bodies floating round me. My wound did not prevent me from swimming, so that I struggled out of the river, and at night-fall walked back to the town. I was afraid to go to my family, so I asked shelter of my friend here; but as my prolonged presence may bring him harm, I am going home to-night.”

In fact, the Government had announced that any Turk or Greek giving protection to an Armenian would be punished with death. So that night the young man went to his house; but he was soon found out, and under the pretext of sending him to hospital for his wound they took him away and he has never been heard of since.

This was the end of the male population. The women were dealt with in the same fashion. They were likewise herded by force into the prison, and marched under escort in batches along the same road leading to Kara-Hissar. They were not massacred, but treated with extreme brutality and forced to walk for long hours, so that many died of exhaustion, and many others committed suicide by throwing themselves into the river with their children in their arms. Some went mad through inability to endure the brutalities and humiliations inflicted on them by the gendarmes and by the Turkish villagers they met on the way. The small children under three years of age were allowed to be carried along by their mothers, but the children between the ages of three and fifteen, both girls and boys, were all distributed among Mohammedan families, with instructions to convert them to Islam. The Armenians’ houses were sealed with the Government’s seal, but it is clear that they were first stripped of their furniture and placed at the disposal of Turkish immigrants. This is the tragic history of the extermination of the 3,000 Armenians of Kerasond.

One old Armenian only escaped death by embracing the Mohammedan religion; but that only served to save his own life, as his son and wife were sent off with the rest.

Kara-Hissar is a town three days inland from Kerasond, Kerasond being its port. The Armenian population of this city, guessing the intentions of the Turks, took up their arms and fled into the mountains surrounding the town. The gendarmes and soldiers sent in their pursuit had several encounters with them, but they failed every time to drive them out of their mountain positions. In my opinion their positions are good and can resist attacks, but their supply of food may soon come to an end, and in their isolation they may starve, if no help reaches them[95].

Trebizond.—During the last massacres (1896) Trebizond suffered the most, and this time also it has been the scene of the most fiendish atrocities. These are described by a young Armenian girl who was an eye-witness of them. She was saved through the protection of the late Italian Consul at Trebizond, who was allowed to leave in a motor boat for Constantinople[96], whence he went to Italy and sent this girl to some relatives of hers in Roumania. She gives the following account of her experiences:—

“In the morning my father, a Russian subject, was summoned by a gendarme and taken away to the Government Building. A few hours passed, and my mother went to find out what had happened to him. She did not return either, and, being thus left alone in the house, I went to our neighbour, the Italian Consul, and asked for his protection. He immediately disguised me as a servant girl in the Consulate. Every day I used to see hundreds of Armenians, men and women in separate batches, passing our house under escort—mothers carrying their children on one arm and a package of provisions on the other. That was all they were allowed to take. The Kavass of the Consulate used to come in every day and report to the Consul all that was going on in the town. Business was at a standstill, all the shops were closed, and you met nothing in the streets but Armenians escorted by gendarmes. Many young girls were forced to marry Mohammedans. All the children were collected and distributed to Turkish families to be brought up, as Mohammedans. Several leading Armenians committed suicide by throwing themselves down from the windows of their houses. All the Armenians who were Russian subjects (there were forty-five of them) were put on board a sailing ship bound for Kerasond, but on the way they were thrown into the sea and shot at by the gendarmes sent with them. This we verified later on, when the Consul was allowed to leave Trebizond in a motor boat, in which I accompanied him as servant girl. On the way a sailor on the launch, in answer to a question from the Consul, said that he had refused to take those forty-five Russian subjects in his sailing boat because he knew what fate was marked out for them on the way; and, in fact, when we arrived at Kerasond, we discovered that not only had those forty-five people never arrived (though they were put on board the boat under the pretext that they were to be exiled to the districts inland from Kerasond), but that not a single Armenian was left in the town itself. We were told the same thing all along the coast—at Tireboli, Ordou, Samsoun, Ineboli, etc.[97] The wife of the late Secretary of the British Consulate at Trebizond (himself a British subject) was forced to marry a Turk; the rest of the family—the Secretary, his brothers, his uncles, etc., who were all British subjects too—were exiled to the interior of the country, and nothing has been heard of them since. Many women have offered to become Mohammedans but have been refused. Only one family in Tireboli, called A., obtained leave to remain by turning Mohammedan.”

This is confirmed by a telegram received lately by a gentleman in Constantinople, who has business connections with the family in question. The telegram was signed “A. Zadé Mehmed Sirry.”

The plan of the Government has been the same everywhere—to convert the children to Islam, and to march the male and female population under escort into the interior of the country, until the last of them has dropped dead with exhaustion. As to their houses, the furniture was distributed among the officers and soldiers. Pianos, side-boards, and other objects too luxurious for soldiers’ houses were sold by auction, where the best buyers, in many districts, were Jews, who considered the price of 50 piastres too high for a piano, and tried to buy them at 10-15 piastres. The houses thus emptied were given over to Turkish immigrants or paupers. The copper kitchen utensils, and, in fact, everything made of copper, were carefully packed, and sent, by different means, to Constantinople, where the Germans were anxiously waiting for them as their share of the plunder.

It is only in Constantinople and Smyrna that the Armenians have not been exiled; but that does not mean that they there escape their share of the general misfortune. Most of the leading Armenians there, including doctors, deputies, wholesale merchants, journalists, etc., were exiled to the interior, and nothing has been heard of them since. The requisitioning officer takes away anything he finds in an Armenian shop, and many have thus been reduced to closing their shops, having nothing left to sell. Only one man among those deported from Constantinople was brought back, having consented to become a Mohammedan. This is Mr. B. of the B. Bros. firm, the largest export and import business in Constantinople. He has been forced to pay £5,000 for the building of a Mosque in Kaisaria, to build a Turkish school in Constantinople, to wear a turban, and to pray seven times a day, as a proof of his sincere devotion to his new religion.

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Footnote 95:

This was written before it was known that the Armenians of Kara-Hissar had been overwhelmed by force and massacred to the last woman and child, with their bishop at their head.—EDITOR.

Footnote 96:

“I hired the motor launch for myself and three members of my household”.—Signor Gorrini in the Rome journal “Il Messaggero,” 25th August, 1915.

Footnote 97:

“Of the 200 Armenian families at Ordou, 160 have embraced Islam, under pressure of threats and violence. Of the 400 Armenian families at Kerasond, 200 have embraced Islam to escape persecution; the rest have been deported.”—New York Journal “Gotchnag,” 28th August, 1915.

76. TREBIZOND AND ERZEROUM: DESPATCH FROM THE CORRESPONDENT OF THE LONDON “TIMES” AT BUKAREST, DATED BUKAREST, 18th MAY, AND PUBLISHED ON THE 22nd MAY, 1916.

Since the entry of the Russian troops into Trebizond it has become possible to lift the veil of mystery that has hitherto shrouded the fate of the Armenian population in this prosperous port. The troops on their arrival found all the Armenian houses plundered and for the most part in ruins. Doors, windows, shutters, and all woodwork had been carried away. There was no opposition on the part of the authorities.

The deportation of the Armenians, which began in June, was carried out here, as elsewhere, in accordance with instructions from Constantinople. The leading families were the first to suffer. Some 300[98] of these received the order to prepare for emigration and purchased a number of wagons for the transport of their property, but four days after their departure all the wagons were brought back to the town. The emigrants had been massacred and their property plundered.

Other groups, each of several hundred families, followed. This process went on for some time, but eventually new methods were adopted. The police entered the houses of the remaining Armenians, forcibly expelled them, drove them through the streets, and locked up the houses. The whole Armenian population of Trebizond, numbering some 10,000 souls, was thus exterminated. It is hoped, however, that some hundreds of persons may yet be found hidden in the villages in the neighbourhood.

At Erzeroum, where the Armenian population was considerably greater, being estimated at 35,000, practically the same programme was carried out. The proceedings, which began in the middle of May, were inaugurated by the arrest and imprisonment of 400 young Armenians.

Many families, after being expelled from their houses, were kept waiting for several days in the streets before being taken to their fate. At the entrance to the town the processions of exiles encountered tax-gatherers, who insisted on the payment of arrears of taxation, although the unfortunate people had left all their property behind them. Only a few artisans, who were required to work for the Army, were allowed to remain in the town. By the beginning of August the whole Armenian population had disappeared from Erzeroum. Only the Bishop remained. On the 5th August two police officers appeared at his house and communicated the order for departure. The Bishop had taken precautions to secure some horses for the transport of his effects, but these were now stolen. He tried to purchase others, but at the last moment he was informed that he was not allowed to take anything with him. He was then removed to an unknown destination.

German officers stationed in the town and the German Consul manifested open approval of these proceedings. Among the spoils which fell to the Turks were several Armenian girls, and a share in this living booty was conceded to the Germans.

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Footnote 98:

Including Muggerditch Zarmanian, a contractor employed by the Ottoman Army.—Information furnished to the writer by Armenian refugees in Roumania.

IX. SIVAS: THE CITY AND PARTS OF THE VILAYET.

The Vilayet of Sivas lies immediately to the west of the Vilayet of Erzeroum. It includes the upper basins of two rivers—the Kizil Irmak (Halys), on the banks of which the City of Sivas itself is situated, and the Yeshil Irmak, further towards the north-west and nearer the Black Sea coast.

The province is less mountainous and much richer than its eastern neighbours. Agriculture is flourishing, the nomad shepherd is comparatively rare, and there are a number of populous towns, with the beginnings of local manufactures.

The peasant population is predominantly Turkish, interspersed with important Greek enclaves, which have held their own from the first Seljuk invasions to the present day; but there are also a number of Armenian villages, and the Armenians constitute—or constituted before June, 1915—-about half the population of the towns. The rising trade and industry was almost entirely the product of these Armenians’ initiative, and they themselves had risen with it in education and civilisation, till in all essentials they were on a level with the corresponding commercial and professional classes in Western Europe.

This peaceful, progressive community was entirely uprooted by the Deportation Decree. The villages were cleared in June; the City of Sivas suffered its first deportation on the 5th July.

77. SIVAS: LETTER FROM A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT SIVAS, DATED 13th JULY, 1915; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

To begin with the all-important fact, which may have reached you by now, the Armenians of the interior are being deported in the direction of Mosul. At the time we left Sivas, two-thirds of them had gone from the city, including all our Protestants, our teachers and pupils, and all our side of the city. Those left were the orphan girls and teachers and a few boarding girls, three nurses and two orderlies in the hospital, D. Effendi and his family and a few women servants. According to my best knowledge and opinion, with the exception of Armenian soldiers and prisoners (all of whose families have been sent) and a very few exceptions in the case of people who, for various reasons, were necessary to the Government, all Armenians are gone from Sivas. According to what I consider good authority, I believe it to be true that the entire Armenian population from Erzeroum to (and including) Gemerek, near Kaisaria, and from Samsoun to (and including) Harpout has been deported. There is also a movement in the central field which had not become general yet when I left, but will doubtless become so later. More than 100,000 Greeks from the Marmora and Mediterranean coast have been deported.

We heard many rumours of massacres, but I have no evidence on the subject. To my knowledge, no general massacres have occurred in the Sivas Vilayet. Not a few men have been killed in one way and another.

This general movement against Armenians began months ago in arrests for alleged revolutionary activity and in searches for guns and bombs. In Sivas the winter passed rather quietly, and it was late spring before much was done. About two months ago a general endeavour was made to imprison all leading Armenians, and within a week more than 1,000 were arrested. I estimate the whole number of Sivas men in prison to be between 1,500 and 2,000. The only person taken from our circle was H. Effendi, who was taken by name the first day—not, we think, as from us, but as a resident in the city. Strict orders were given not to molest us or our people, though all our efforts to do anything for H. Effendi failed. Up to the time of our departure from Sivas these men had been in prison a month. They were well, and as comfortable as could be expected in a Turkish prison; but no examinations had been held, no charges made, and no one knew what was to be done. The Vali assured me again and again that they would be released and sent with their families; but this was not done for at least ten days after the deportation was begun, and I have no confidence that it will be done at all. We could not believe that this outrage would really take place, but when, on Monday, hundreds of families were loaded on to ox-carts and sent off, and our Protestant people were told that they were to start on Wednesday, Miss Graffam said she was going to try to go with them, and in this she succeeded. She bought a spring wagon, a common wagon, eight ox-carts and six donkeys, so that our pupils and teachers went by their own conveyance. The Government furnished on an average an ox-cart to a family, but how far they went that way and how soon they were obliged to walk we do not know.

The advice of the Vali was that the orphans should remain for the present, and we have no idea what they will do to them in the end. This was one of our motives in getting to Constantinople. I represented to our friends there the fear we had that, after all the others were gone, these girls might be forcibly taken from us and put into Turkish families. I talked with Mr. N. about the possibility of bringing them all out of the country. Mr. Morgenthau promised to have strict orders sent to Sivas for their protection. I presume you will hear from Mr. N. on the subject, if his letter gets through. At the time we left Sivas the orphanage circle (female) was complete with the exception of Miss O., who went with the Protestants. I think they deemed it wise to keep as few teachers as necessary. Miss P. and Miss Q. expect to go with them if they go, and take care of them if they remain. We understand that, since we left, the orphans have been moved up to the college building with the ladies; probably the old building is vacant, and very likely sealed by the Government to ensure its safety. The Y.’s are probably sleeping in our house and going to the city for hospital work in the daytime.

The only men besides Dr. Y. are G., our kavass, D. Effendi and two or three orderlies in the hospital, of whom you will remember only our old teacher, Z. Effendi, of Divrig. All the Protestants except R. the Greek and his family, most of the boarders (boys and girls) and all our teachers excepting H. Effendi, who was in prison, and K., who is with us, went on the road together on Wednesday afternoon, the 7th July. Six or eight of the larger boys ran away a day or two before, and we got no word from them. S. Effendi and T. Effendi went with their families, and the others—U., V., W. and X.—went the same day.

After we had seen thousands of people start out, and especially after ours had actually gone, we came to the conclusion that if anything could be done to stop this terrible crime, which impresses us as ten times worse than any massacre, it would be done in Constantinople. Our work in Sivas seemed to be terminated, at least for the present, and our furlough was due; so it was decided that Dr. Y., because of his knowledge of Turkish and his medical work, should remain, and that the rest of us should go. We had been getting neither letters nor telegrams for some time, and I did not believe that those we sent arrived. In Constantinople we found that the whole plan of deportation originated from the Central Government, and that no pressure from the Embassies had been able to effect anything. Mr. N. felt that the most we could do now was to work for raising relief funds for the Armenians, and, in view of the uncertainty of travel from Constantinople to the border, he was anxious for us to get out of the country as soon as possible. So we started at once on receiving our passports.

We believe there is imminent danger of many of these people (whom we estimate for the Sivas, Erzeroum and Harpout Vilayets to be 600,000) starving to death on the road. They took food for a few days, but did not dare take much money with them, as, if they did so, it is doubtful whether they would be allowed to keep it. From Mr. N. we understood that the Rockefeller Foundation people are in Geneva or Berne, and we hope that everything possible will be done to make them recommend relief appropriations at once. Mr. N. and our Ambassador promised to do what they could, and gave me some hope that some relief funds might be sent to Harpout at once. It is questionable whether relief work will even be allowed, but it ought to be undertaken if possible. We shall do all we can in the United States, with the aid of the American Missions Board....

I started out from Sivas with several hundred addresses of people to whom we promised to give word about their friends. Then there was my own list of some 700 names of my constituency that I brought, but we were obliged to leave them all in Constantinople. It was impossible to carry out of Turkey a single address or a scrap of writing of any kind. I bought an empty account book, and started a new travelling expense account after crossing the border.

We met on the road near Talas the people of two villages journeying on foot with less than a donkey to a family, no food or bedding, hardly any men, and many of the women barefooted and carrying children. A case in Sivas worthy of notice was that of T. Effendi’s sister. Her husband had worked in our hospital as a soldier nurse for many months. She contracted typhus, and was brought to our hospital. Her mother, a woman of sixty to seventy, got up from a sick-bed to go and take care of their seven children, the oldest of whom was about twelve. A few days before the deportation, the husband was imprisoned and exiled without examination or fault. When the quarter in which they lived went off, the mother got out of bed in the hospital and was put on an ox-cart to go with her children.

78. SIVAS: LETTER[99] WRITTEN FROM MALATIA BY MISS MARY L. GRAFFAM, PRINCIPAL OF THE GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL AT SIVAS, TO A CORRESPONDENT AT CONSTANTINOPLE; REPRINTED FROM THE BOSTON “MISSIONARY HERALD,” DECEMBER, 1915.

When we were ready to leave Sivas, the Government gave forty-five ox-carts for the Protestant townspeople and eighty horses, but none at all for our pupils and teachers; so we bought ten ox-carts, two horse arabas, and five or six donkeys, and started out. In the company were all our teachers in the college, about twenty boys from the college and about thirty of the girls’-school. It was as a special favour to the Sivas people, who had not done anything revolutionary, that the Vali allowed the men who were not yet in prison to go with their families.

The first night we were so tired that we just ate a piece of bread and slept on the ground wherever we could find a place to spread a yorgan (blanket). It was after dark when we stopped, anyway. We were so near Sivas that the gendarmes protected us, and no special harm was done; but the second night we began to see what was before us. The gendarmes would go ahead and have long conversations with the villagers, and then stand back and let them rob and trouble the people until we all began to scream, and then they would come and drive them away. Yorgans and rugs, and all such things, disappeared by the dozen, and donkeys were sure to be lost. Many had brought cows; but from the first day those were carried off, one by one, until not a single one remained.

We got accustomed to being robbed, but the third day a new fear took possession of us, and that was that the men were to be separated from us at Kangal. We passed there at noon and, apart from fear, nothing special happened. Our teacher from Mandjaluk was there, with his mother and sisters. They had left the village with the rest of the women and children, and when they saw that the men were being taken off to be killed the teacher fled to another village, four hours away, where he was found by the police and brought safely with his family to Kangal, because the tchaoush who had taken them from Mandjaluk wanted his sister. I found them confined in one room. I went to the Kaimakam and got an order for them all to come with us.

At Kangal some Armenians had become Mohammedans, and had not left the village, but the others were all gone. The night before we had spent at Kazi Mahara, which was empty. They said that a valley near there was full of corpses. At Kangal we also began to see exiles from Tokat. The sight was one to strike horror to any heart; they were a company of old women, who had been robbed of absolutely everything. At Tokat the Government had first imprisoned the men, and from the prison had taken them on the road. The preacher’s wife was in the company, and told us the story. After the men had gone, they arrested the old women and the older brides, perhaps about thirty or thirty-five years old. There were very few young women or children. All the younger women and children were left in Tokat. Badvelli Avedis has seven children; one was with our schoolgirls and the other six remained in Tokat, without father or mother to look after them. For three days these Tokat people had been without food, and after that had lived on the Sivas company, who had not yet lost much.

When we looked at them we could not imagine that even the sprinkling of men that were with us would be allowed to remain. We did not long remain in doubt; the next day we heard that a special kaimakam had come to Hassan Tchelebi to separate the men, and it was with terror in our hearts that we passed through that village about noon. But we encamped and ate our supper in peace, and even began to think that perhaps it was not so, when the Mudir came round with gendarmes and began to collect the men, saying that the Kaimakam wanted to write their names and that they would be back soon.

The night passed, and only one man came back to tell the story of how every man was compelled to give up all his money, and all were taken to prison. The next morning they collected the men who had escaped the night before and extorted forty-five liras from our company, on the promise that they would give us gendarmes to protect us. One “company” is supposed to be from 1,000 to 3,000 persons. Ours was perhaps 2,000, and the greatest number of gendarmes would be five or six. In addition to these they sewed a red rag on the arm of a Kurdish villager and gave him a gun, and he had the right to rob and bully us all he pleased.

Broken-hearted, the women continued their journey. Our boys were not touched, and two of our teachers being small escaped, and will be a great help as long as they can stay with the company. The Mudir said that the men had gone back to Sivas; the villagers whom we saw all declared that all those men were killed at once. The question of what becomes of the men who are taken out of the prisons and of those who are taken from the convoy is a profound mystery. I have talked with many Turks, and I cannot make up my mind what to believe.

As soon as the men left us, the Turkish drivers began to rob the women, saying: “You are all going to be thrown into the Tokma Su, so you might as well give your things to us, and then we will stay by you and try to protect you.” Every Turkish woman that we met said the same thing. The worst were the gendarmes, who really did more or less bad things. One of our schoolgirls was carried off by the Kurds twice, but her companions made so much fuss that she was brought back. I was on the run all the time from one end of the company to the other. These robbing, murdering Kurds are certainly the best-looking men I have seen in this country. They steal your goods, but not everything. They do not take your bread or your stick.

As we approached the bridge over the Tokma Su, it was certainly a fearful sight. As far as the eye could see over the plain was this slow-moving line of ox-carts. For hours there was not a drop of water on the road, and the sun poured down its very hottest. As we went on we began to see the dead from yesterday’s company, and the weak began to fall by the way. The Kurds working in the fields made attacks continually, and we were half-distracted. I piled as many as I could on our wagons, and our pupils, both boys and girls, worked like heroes. One girl took a baby from its dead mother and carried it until evening. Another carried a dying woman until she died. We bought water from the Kurds, not minding the beating that the boys were sure to get with it. I counted forty-nine deaths, but there must have been many more. One naked body of a woman was covered with bruises. I saw the Kurds robbing the bodies of those not yet entirely dead. I walked, or, rather, ran, back and forth until we could see the bridge.

The hills on each side were white with Kurds, who were throwing stones on the Armenians, who were slowly wending their way to the bridge. I ran ahead and stood on the bridge in the midst of a crowd of Kurds, until I was used up. I did not see anyone thrown into the water, but they said, and I believe it, that a certain Elmas, who has done handwork for me for years, was thrown over the bridge by a Kurd. Our Badvelli’s wife was riding on a horse with a baby in her arms, and a Kurd took hold of her to throw her over, when another Kurd said: “She has a baby in her arms,” and they let her go. After crossing the bridge, we found all the Sivas people who had left before us waiting by the river, as well as companies from Samsoun, Amasia and other places.

The police for the first time began to interfere with me here, and it was evident that something was decided about me. The next morning after we arrived at this bridge, they wanted me to go to Malatia; but I insisted that I had permission to stay with the Armenians. During the day, however, they said that the Mutessarif had ordered me to come to Malatia, and that the others were going to Kiakhta. Soon after we heard that they were going to Ourfa, there to build villages and cities, &c.

In Malatia I went at once to the commandant, a captain who they say has made a fortune out of these exiles. I told him how I had gone to Erzeroum last winter, and how we pitied these women and children and wished to help them, and finally he sent me to the Mutessarif. The latter is a Kurd, apparently anxious to do the right thing; but he has been sick most of the time since he came, and the “beys” here have had things more or less their own way, and certainly horrors have been committed. I suggested that they should telegraph to Sivas and understand that I had permission to go with these exiles all the way, and the answer is said to have come from Sivas that I am not to go beyond here.

My friends here are very glad to have me with them, for they have a very difficult problem on their hands and are nearly crazy with the horrors they have been through here. The Mutessarif and other officials here and at Sivas have read me orders from Constantinople again and again to the effect that the lives of these exiles are to be protected, and from their actions I should judge that they must have received such orders; but they certainly have murdered a great many in every city. Here there were great trenches dug by the soldiers for drilling purposes. Now these trenches are all filled up, and our friends saw carts going back from the city by night. A man I know told me that when he was out to inspect some work he was having done, he saw a dead body which had evidently been pulled out of one of these trenches, probably by dogs. He gave word to the Government, with the result that his two servants, who were with him, were sent for by under-officers, saying that the Pasha wanted them, and they were murdered. The Beledia Reis here says that every male over ten years old is being murdered, that not one is to live, and no woman over fifteen. The truth seems to be somewhere between these two extremes.

My greatest object in going with these exiles was to help them to get started there. Many have relatives in all sorts of places, to whom I could write; and I could, in my own estimation, be a channel by which aid could get to them. I am not criticising the Government. Most of the higher officials are at their wit’s end to stop these abuses and carry out the orders which they have received; but this is a flood, and it carries everything before it.

I have tried to write only what I have seen and know to be true. The reports and possibilities are very many, but the exact truth that we know, at best, calls for our most earnest prayer and effort. God has come very near to many during these days.

79. EXTRACTS FROM A LETTER, DATED MASSACHUSETTS, 29th AUGUST, 1915, FROM ANOTHER FOREIGN RESIDENT AT SIVAS TO MR. G.H. PAELIAN.

You may be surprised to get a letter from me from America, and I am surprised myself that I am really here. It is seven years and our time for a furlough; but as there was no one to leave the College with, and the children were small, we decided to wait a year or two. But when they deported the Armenians and left us without work and without friends, we decided to come home and get our vacation and be ready to go wherever we could after the war.

You will want to know about Sivas and about your family in particular. In general, the Sivas Armenians are gone, but there were a few exceptions when we came away—the Swiss Orphanage, the Sanasarian School, the people in prison (1,500 of the best men), and the Armenians in the army who were employed in making roads, building houses, tailoring, shoe-making, &c., for the army. Then there are Dr. A. and Dr. B., the C.’s, a few tent-makers and people who were necessary to the Turks, a few nurses in our hospital, and D., our druggist.

The others were all deported on ox-carts on the 5th July and the succeeding ten days. In general, there was one ox-cart to a family, and they could take whatever they wished to on that. The Vali allowed the Protestants all to go on the same day, although they were scattered all over the city, and the others were sent by quarters. Our teachers and boarding pupils went with the Protestants.

E. and her children went with the Protestants too. I bought a cow for her, and gave it to her and another woman who could take care of it. I thought that F. must have milk. I did not get down in time to see them off, but Miss Graffam went with them to help what she could.

The morning after they started out, we sent G. on horseback to see how they were. They had spent one night without any accident, although they had not slept much.

All our teachers went except H., who was in prison. We do not know why they imprisoned him, but we think some enemy of the family must have told some lies about them, because they imprisoned his brother, too, and J. We tried every way to get him out, but it was of no use.

Have you heard that he is engaged to K., a girl who has been in our family a great deal? She was a teacher in the girls’-school, studied one year in Smyrna, and then taught one year more. She usually spends the summer in our family, and was to do the same this year. When the Armenians were deported, the Vali allowed us to keep three girls as servants, and, as she was to be with us, we kept her with two others who were already with us, and we brought the three to America with us, saving these three from the general deportation.

Since coming to America and hearing about what happened in other places, it seems that the deportation from Sivas was very humane, but at best it was awful. I cannot describe the sadness of having all our friends taken away from us in one day and not knowing where they were going or whether we should see them again. The College was full of boys, teachers, carpenters, servants, &c. The L.’s, &c., were camping. In a single day they went, and only our family was left, with G. We were not afraid; we did not care what happened.

Now we do not know what has become of them, or what has become of the prisoners or the soldiers.

80. SIVAS: NARRATIVE OF A NATURALISED OTTOMAN SUBJECT, DATED NEW YORK CITY, 10th MARCH, 1916; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

When the majority of the Armenian people were exiled from Sivas, I was in Talas, but when I heard what had happened I started back at once, thinking of course that my relations would also be sent away, and wishing to accompany them. It was with great difficulty that I obtained permission from the officials in Kaisaria to go back; they claimed that the road was very dangerous, and that it would be impossible for a woman alone to travel over it. Finally, the head official of the Military Transport, who was living in Sivas and had taken possession of Dr. AB.’s house there, telegraphed to Kaisaria that I might travel under the protection of the Menzel, and I started with two officers who were in a wagon behind me and who warned me that I must keep close to them, as the road was very dangerous. The road until we reached Sharkishla, two days’ journey from Kaisaria, was very quiet, and we met almost no one. At Sharkishla the plain was black with exiles from different parts of Anatolia; they had been waiting there for about a week and new recruits were coming in every day. At that time they did not seem very unhappy. The weather was beautiful, the plain was covered with trees, and many of the wealthy people had tents and wagons, while there were a great many boys and men in the party.

Later, when they reached Malatia, or even before, the men were separated from them, their wagons and goods were taken from them, and they were only allowed to take what they could carry on their backs over the narrow mountain pass through which they went. I know this because Miss Graffam met these same people later on, while she was on the road with the Sivas people. I was not very near them, but I could see them from the han window. The handji, an Armenian, told me he was sure they were all to be killed, and the officers told me the next day that they had visited them at night, and that the men were to be killed; they said they were sorry for the women and children, but one of them added: “This is what happens to people that want a kingdom of their own.”

I had a few unpleasant experiences on the road, but I will not stop to tell them. I found my relations safe, and the Vali had told them they might stay—I believe because of the influence of some powerful Turkish friends they have in Constantinople, who had telegraphed to the Vali to save Dr. AB. and his wife. The prisons at that time were filled with our Sivas men—several thousand; these men we visited every day, taking food to some of them and trying to cheer up the others. Their wives and children had gone with the exiles, and it was pretty hard work to be brave when they did not know their fate, but it was surprising how really brave they were. Some of the gaolers were very brutal men, and would be as disagreeable as possible to us, but others were polite and willing to let us see the prisoners, even allowing selected ones to come into the yard and talk with us. About a month later these men were taken out in batches of a hundred at night; they were told that they were to be taken to the railway near Angora to work on it; the rich men were allowed to hire wagons from Turks, at a big price, to travel in. They were all taken very early in the morning, several hours before daylight, and they were seen, those on foot, to go over the mountain into the valley, where we are pretty sure they were killed, as the soldiers returned with clothes, and the wagons always came back three or four hours later filled with clothes. The soldiers, moreover, described how many of the men met their fate, some bravely, some otherwise, and we think they spoke the truth, for they told of men we knew intimately, and who would have been apt to do and say just what they said they did, in the face of death. It was hard to see so many of our fine young men go off in this way, and many of them had no idea they were going to their death. Some of them took money with them, thinking they might meet their wives and children. When they heard that Miss Graffam was returning, they were so anxious to see her and hear of their families. Most of them were gone when she got back, but she was allowed to go into the prison and tell those that were left something about the journey she had made. They were thankful to hear that their wives and children were still alive, as they had heard they had all been massacred a few days’ distance from Sivas. Miss Graffam said that although they were robbed on the road and almost everything they had was taken from them, still the girls and women were not outraged or treated badly as far as Malatia. After that, we heard from boys that had escaped from the party and come back to Sivas that many of the girls were carried off by the Kurds a few days after Miss Graffam left them.

After all our Sivas men had been taken from the prisons, other men kept coming in from other cities and towns like Angora and Yozgad. They were kept in prison for a few days and then taken out as our men had been. We were not permitted to see these men. Many of them when they reached Sivas were in carriages. We heard that they, too, were killed in the mountains, and that Sivas was being called the “Great Slaughter House.” The last of our young men that remained in prison were three young doctors. One of them, Dr. AC., had been educated by Mrs. AD.; he had been brought up in the Orphanage at X., and was a splendid young man, full of enthusiasm for his work, which was in the military hospital. Another of the three was the son of a wealthy Divrig family, who had been educated in Germany and had many strong German friends among the high German officials in Constantinople, who either would not or could not do anything to save him. They were executed while I was in Constantinople. I had taken with me letters to a high German official from Dr. AE., asking him to save them; and later Miss Graffam telegraphed to me that they were in great danger, and begged me to do all I could to save them—to go to the Germans. I did so, but was told they had gone to Enver Pasha before, and that he would do nothing for them.

About thirty or forty families in Sivas, all of them wealthy, had become Moslems, having the promise that, if they did so, their lives and property would be safe. A few weeks later, all of them, with the exception of two or three merchants, were told they had to go, and, as soon as they left, their property was confiscated by the Government. The Vali’s family doctor, an Armenian, was told that he was to stay, and he asked if that meant he was to become a Moslem. The Vali said: “No, I am tired of these people becoming Moslems.”

At two different times our orphanage children were ordered out; both times Dr. Y. went to the Vali and begged that they might stay, telling him how small many of them were, only three or four years old, and how they would certainly die on the road, for at that time even ox-carts could not be found. He seemed to be touched and said they might. There seemed always to be friction between the police and the Vali; he would give permission for them to stay and the police would come and say they were to go; several of the police officers came to the older girls and teachers, and asked them to become their wives and stay, saying that they would be carried off on the road anyway, and that they might as well accept them and remain. Many hundreds of little girls were being brought back to Sivas before I left; some were being placed in Moslem families and some in empty houses. We were not allowed to see them. Many of the Turkish officers had seized one or two of these little girls and were planning to take them on to Constantinople with them. Some of our orphanage teachers were able to interview some of the older girls that were brought back from Kara-Hissar (one of the places where the Armenians tried to defend themselves). These girls tell horrible tales of what they saw there. A great many of these girls were being married to Turks; the Turks were saying they were not forcing them; they wanted them to become their wives willingly. A number of women and children who had been in hiding were also beginning to come out of hiding when I left, and the Missionaries were taking them into the orphanage and the hospital, trying to save them.

Several Armenian soldiers from the Samsoun region had also fled to the hospital for protection; they had started with their regiments from Samsoun, and the Armenians, who numbered a thousand or more, had been attacked by the guards and the majority killed or left for dead. The men that came to Dr. Y. had been among those left for dead; one of them had a horrible wound across the back of his neck, where he had been cut by an axe; they usually used axes, saying they did not want to waste powder and shot on them. Some others came from a lonely barracks on the Marsovan road, where they and their comrades, all Armenians (soldiers), had been shut up for three days without food or water. Finally a young Turkish officer heard the noise as he passed, and came and let them out. These men said that they were put in this building towards evening. They were tied together by threes and called out in succession. Those that went out never returned, and they found that they were being butchered with axes. One of the men succeeded in untying the cord that he and his two companions were tied with; they closed and barricaded the door, and when the soldiers, who were only a few in number (Turkish), found that they could not get in, they fastened it on the outside so that the Armenians should not get out. They were afraid, indeed, to go out even after the Turkish soldiers had left, until this officer appeared and sent them on to Sivas; he said that the men that did these things would be punished, but they were not. We believed that they were allowed to do pretty much as they pleased with the Armenians, and so, when they happened to be brutal, they did this kind of thing, with the result that many of the Armenians that had gone through it had become nervous wrecks. Dr. Y. had seen and talked with a number of these men, and I also saw those who had fled to the hospital.

In Tokat the girls, small and large, were left in the houses alone. The daughter of the Badvelli there managed to send a letter to her uncle, who was a nurse in our hospital (a soldier), saying that she and her four little sisters were in the house alone and had nothing to live on, and that the city was full of girls in the same condition; up till that time, which was a month after their parents had left them, they had not been injured by the Turks. A Turk brought the letter.

On the 1st October, when I left Sivas to go up to Constantinople, I had some difficulty in getting permission to start, as the Vali was away. I had to wait until he returned. He said he would see that I got as far as Talas safely, and he told me which places to stop at; but because of some trouble with the driver, I was unable to stop at the hans he told me to stop at, and the first night the han was filled with Armenians who were being deported from X., both men and women. They were wealthy people who had become Moslems. My driver told me that they had not become true Moslems and for that reason were being sent away. The soldiers with them were very evil-looking men. I noticed that they had many beautiful rugs and carpets in their wagons. In the next room there were some Turks who were talking of the killing of the Armenians; however, nothing happened to them that night. The second night I had to stop at a han which had been very prosperous a few months before, but was now half wrecked and deserted. It was dark and we could not go on, and we found that the son and brother of the former handji had become Moslems, and that the Government had allowed them to take charge of the han on condition that they turned over all the money they made to the Government. These two men were in the most pitiable condition from fear, and they both told me horrible tales of how the men of Gemerek had been killed; this han was outside the town of Gemerek. They said they had hidden in the mountains for three weeks until driven out by starvation, and then had given themselves up to the Government and become Moslems, but they added: “We are only Moslems with our mouths, but Christians in our hearts.” Still, they were very fearful, and not at all sure that they would not be killed later. In the village of Gemerek, they said, most of the girls had been forced into marriage with the Turks, and many of the old women had been killed and the rest deported. I had seen them on my way to Sivas going out, so I knew this to be true. The next night I heard two hodjas talking, under my window, of a terrible massacre of the Armenians that had just taken place in the mountains; they seemed to be very sorry about it and spoke of it with horror; they did not know, of course, that I was listening. When I reached Talas, the people had almost all gone from there and from Kaisaria. The Kaisaria Protestants, or at least a number of Protestant families, were sent out to Talas and given houses there, while the Talas Protestants were sent to neighbouring villages; but their condition was much better than that of any of the Armenian people in our Sivas region. The Girls’-School was filled with girls from Kaisaria, most of them the daughters of wealthy Gregorian and Catholic families. The Kaisaria people had been allowed to leave their daughters behind. While I was there, a woman and two men arrived from one of the Kaisaria out-stations and told of the terrible massacre of the whole village. First the little boys up to ten were taken outside the village and killed. There were only a few men in the village, so the women dressed as men and held the village against the Kurds and Turks for three weeks, keeping them off with stones; they had fled to the hills. These people said that the Turks used to call to them to come down and become Moslems and their lives would be spared; this they refused to do. Later, the village Turks were reinforced by the soldiers from Kaisaria, who shot them down, only these three people escaping. They had been weeks reaching Talas, having to hide by day and travel very slowly at night for fear of being caught. This village had many of our Protestant people, and among those killed was the mother of one of the teachers and the wife of another. We heard that all the villages in that region were treated in this way, instead of being deported. While in Talas I had a telegram from Sivas asking me to wait for a professor of the Sanasarian College, who was coming from Sivas with his wife and little boy. The Vali had given them permission to go on to Constantinople; he had been educated in Vienna and his wife in this country; they were very fine people. I waited several days and they did not come. I found that they had left Sivas as they planned and disappeared between Sivas and Talas—they have never been heard from. I know a number of people that disappeared in just this way on that road, after the Vali had given them permission to travel and the promise of a safe escort.

The rest of the way from Kaisaria to the railway I went under the protection of the Military Transportation Company. I passed through many deserted towns, but saw no dead bodies on the road, only one between Sivas and Talas. On the railway we passed truck-load after truck-load of Armenians—exiles being sent into the interior. All were in cattle-trucks, huddled together like animals. We met these trucks every day; often they were shunted on the siding. All along the Konia plain were tens of thousands of people; some had tents, many of them had nothing. The weather at that time was warm, so they were not suffering specially from the cold. Later, while in Constantinople, we heard that these people on the Konia plain were being sent into the interior and not allowed to take any food with them, so that they would die quickly.

On the train, in the compartment with me, was the wife of the Mutessarif of Erzindjan. She had several Armenian girls with her—one of them in the compartment with us to wait on her children. She was kind to this child, who was only about nine years old, but she treated her like a little slave. She told another Turkish woman that her parents had been sent away and she had taken her from the streets. The Armenians in Constantinople had not been deported, only the men who were suspected of revolutionary tendencies, but there is great suffering among them for lack of food, and they need work. Professor —— told me, the week before I left, that the Turks in Constantinople were saying: “The Armenians from Constantinople must go,” and that great pressure was being brought to bear upon them by the Turks to become Moslems and stay. We had a number of Armenian young women employed in the Red Cross work, and they all showed a most beautiful Christian spirit, were always kind and gentle to the soldiers, and never showed in any way that they felt any bitterness toward them. Several of them had come from the interior and had relatives that had been deported; one of them was from Trebizond, where there had been that terrible massacre of children, and her little baby of seven months was, she fears, among them. This young woman went into exile with her husband, and lost everything and everyone in Trebizond. She was a most beautiful Christian, and was loved and respected by the people that worked with her.

81. SIVAS: THE ADVENTURES OF MURAD; NARRATED BY “S.H.S.,” IN THE JOURNAL “THE NEW ARMENIA,” OF NEW YORK, 1st MARCH, 1916.

In December, 1914, Murad was peacefully at work in his native village of Govdoun. Then he was apprised of the troubles brewing in the city of Sivas, the capital of the Vilayet. He hastened there to find the Armenians panic-stricken. All the Armenians of military age, as well as all the prominent Armenian business men, had been imprisoned on the pretext that the bread supplied to the Turkish soldiers was poisoned by the Armenian bakers. The Armenian physicians in the city went to the military commander and protested against this outrage, offering to prove that the accusation was false. As the military commander was not on good terms with the Vali, he ordered some of the bread to be brought, and the physicians ate it before him without any bad results. Then he ordered the prisoners to be released. However, matters grew steadily worse, persecution increased, and spread finally to the surrounding villages.

Murad, with a group of brave Armenians, resisted the outrages of the Turkish Government for several months, until he was obliged to take refuge in the mountains. In March, 1915, Turkish soldiers were sent to capture Murad and his band, but they were defeated and repulsed. The Armenians fought their way slowly over the mountains in a continual guerilla warfare. The Government became so exasperated that it placed a price on Murad’s head.

Murad was stricken with typhus as a result of the privations and hardships the band endured, and his comrades had to carry him from snow-clad mountain to mountain, and from cave to cave, in order to save him from capture. At Mount Sachar Murad and his comrades were surrounded by three hundred Turkish cavalrymen, but they succeeded in escaping to an Armenian village in Khantzart. The peasants nursed Murad, and said: “Remain here, and we will die by hundreds to protect you.” Murad did not wish to expose them to danger. When he heard that the Turkish cavalry were approaching, he requested his comrades to remove him to the mountains.

In the milder weather of May, Murad began to recover. A company of Turkish cavalrymen renewed the search for the little band of Armenian warriors. Murad and his seven men opened fire upon the Turks, wounding several of them. The Turks beat a hasty retreat, but returned soon with reinforcements. These also were put to flight by the Armenians. Murad then withdrew from the mountain and travelled for some days through the woods and valleys.

Because of the extraordinary prowess of the Armenians, it was rumoured that Murad had a thousand men with him. The Vali of Sivas determined to capture him at any cost. At a place called Telouk-Khaina a hundred Turkish infantry advanced upon Murad’s army of eight, but Murad decided to save his ammunition, and retreated. Near Tedjir a Turkish regiment with seven guns advanced to give battle to the supposed Armenian army, but the Armenians again used discretion. Murad’s men had armed themselves well at the beginning, and replenished their stock of ammunition constantly from the soldiers whom they killed. They frequently found on the slain Kurds and Turks jewelry and other ornaments that had belonged to Armenian women, and Murad still has in his possession some of these jewels.

After numerous victorious encounters and skirmishes with the Turks, Murad turned toward Samsoun, in the autumn of 1915. His band had been increased by seven Armenians and three Greeks. Having reached the village of Tchamulan, not far from Samsoun, they were welcomed by a prominent Greek named Constantine. The Turks had burned and destroyed all the boats owned by Constantine, who was also subjected to other persecutions. Defying the Turks, he harboured the eighteen rebels in his house, and defended them. One day three hundred Turkish soldiers surrounded the Greek’s house and opened fire. The besieged band so successfully defended itself that the enemy could not approach the house. Every new attack was repulsed successfully, and many of the Turks were killed. In the evening the siege was raised and the enemy withdrew. Murad and his comrades, together with Constantine and his family, evacuated their stronghold and proceeded toward Samsoun.

The party finally reached the woods of Hodjadagh, near the Black Sea. There they remained in hiding, and sent scouts to reconnoitre the country and find a way of escape. Having replenished their stock of food and ammunition, the brave warriors hastened one night to the sea coast. They found there a Turkish sailing vessel at anchor, and captured it with its Turkish crew of five. They loaded the vessel with their supplies and set sail, taking with them the Turkish crew to man the boat.

After eight days and nights on the Black Sea, their water supply was exhausted and they were compelled to make bread with sea-water. Meanwhile they suffered terribly from thirst. The vessel passed Samsoun and Kerasond, and approached Riza. While they were still about three or four hours’ distance from the Russian coast, two Turkish motor-boats were seen pursuing. The Turks had learned of Murad’s escape and had dispatched a force to capture him at sea. The Turks opened fire on the rebels. The Armenian sharpshooters replied effectively. The motor-boats turned back after many of the soldiers had been killed. In Murad’s party brave Yegho was killed, and one of the Greeks wounded.

A heavy storm arose, and the superstitious Turkish sailors begged that the body of Yegho might be thrown into the sea, because they feared that the boat would be wrecked if the corpse remained on board. The vessel finally reached Batoum, and the party landed safely on Russian soil. Murad buried Yegho and then went to Tiflis, where he joined the other Armenian Volunteers.

82. SIVAS: RECORD OF AN INTERVIEW GIVEN BY THE REFUGEE MURAD TO MR. A.S. SAFRASTIAN AT TIFLIS.

Once more the curtain drawn over the heinous details of Armenian massacres in Asia Minor is raised by that well-known fighter, Murad of Sivas, the Armenian leader of the province. Starting from Sharkishla, some twenty miles south-west of Sivas, with a small force, he opened his way to Divrig, lying about sixty miles south-east of Sivas; and after a great number of encounters with regular Turkish troops, he eventually entrenched himself on the heights of Yaldiz Dagh, north-east of Sivas, where, surrounded by large numbers of the enemy, he kept up desperate fighting for eight days. Most of his comrades were killed in this unequal combat. He himself, however, succeeded in breaking through the Turkish lines and emerged on the coast, somewhere near Samsoun. Here he forced some Turkish boatmen to set sail in the direction of Batoum. On the voyage, his boat was chased by Turkish motor launches and fired on, and in this encounter one of his comrades was killed by a bullet. He has just reached here to throw more light upon the horrors which have been committed in the Vilayet of Sivas and in parts of Harpout and Western Dersim.

For about twenty years Murad (a brother-in-arms of Andranik, the organiser of the present volunteer regiments) has been in the front ranks of the Armenian movement as a leading fighter, and the circumstances of his struggle since last March, and the story of his adventurous escape to Russia when all was over, would fill volumes. He has come to tell the outside world the news that, of 160,000 Armenians inhabiting the province of Sivas, there remain now, or, rather, remained a month ago, when he left, some 10,000, who have either been spared as useful artisans toiling in the labour battalions and the prisons, or were old people left in their homes. The remaining 150,000 souls have either been massacred outright or deported to the area bounded by the right bank of the Euphrates and Northern Mesopotamia.

The story which Murad gave me reveals once more the thorough organisation of these massacres by an overmastering hand, and the ruthless processes by which the details were carried out. Anybody listening to Murad, who had been cut off from the rest of the world for eight months, would at once have thought it to be the story of the massacres at Bitlis or one of the other places, there is such a striking resemblance of detail in the work of destruction.

The persecutions began with the outbreak of the Turkish war. The Armenians of Sivas did all they could to help the Red Crescent work of the Turkish army, either by personal service or contributions. Notwithstanding all these efforts, the Armenian element in particular was unscrupulously robbed under the cloak of military requisitions. In the meantime, the Turks of Sivas did not conceal their intention of settling old scores with the Armenians, who had applied to Europe for reforms.

The storm broke over the question of Armenian deserters from the Turkish army and the disarming of civilian Armenians. The Divisional Commander of Sivas had ordered that able-bodied men above thirty-three years of age and liable to service should get a permit from the military authorities for temporary exemption from entering the field; whereas Muamer Pasha, the Vali of Sivas, looked upon such a step as a sign of Armenian disloyalty. During December and January most Armenian soldiers in the Turkish service were either disarmed and sent to the labour battalions, or were imprisoned as ‘suspicious’ characters. The treatment they received in the army was of a most unenviable kind. A Holy War had been proclaimed by the Caliph, and the fate of the Infidels was in the Moslems’ hands. To mention an instance: on an unfounded charge of desertion six Armenians were hanged in Gurin, three of them being brothers, who were absolutely innocent.

For disarming the Armenians, the Turks employed the most fiendish methods. The order for delivering up all arms in the possession of civilians was nominally universal, but in fact it was directed against the Armenians. In Khourakhon, a village near Sivas, one man (Harutune) was actually shod like a horse, one (Muggerdich) was castrated, and another (Puzant) was done to death by putting a red-hot iron crown on his head. Under threats of such tortures many Armenians were compelled to buy arms and give them up to the authorities. The tragi-comical part of the whole business was that the Turkish officials entrusted with the mission of collecting arms were themselves selling them to Armenians at a good profit[100]. The object of these infamous proceedings seems to have been the wish of the Turkish Government to place the Armenians in the category of rebels, and accuse them of having hidden arms in spite of official warnings.

Then, again, with a view to striking terror among the Armenians, four or five of the leading men in every town or village were mysteriously shot, while most of the Government officials of Armenian nationality were dismissed without any reason. Nishan Effendi, the sub-governor of Kotchesur[101] (Province of Sivas), a man of good record, was peremptorily dismissed from his post with many others.

Towards the end of January last (1915), Odabashian Vartabed (the Armenian bishop-elect of Sivas) was proceeding to his post from Angora, when he was attacked on the way and killed in his carriage. It has now been proved beyond doubt that the plot was hatched with the cognisance of Muamer Pasha, the Governor, as among the murderers were Mahil Effendi of Zara, his aide-de-camp, Tcherkess Kior Kassim, his chief hangman, and two others.

During the course of February, Armenian soldiers on active service and Armenian bakers were accused by the authorities of having poisoned the soldiers’ bread and food. The subsequent medical inquiry instituted by Turkish and Greek doctors easily proved the baselessness of so gross a charge.

The billeting of Turkish soldiers upon Armenians throughout the province, and their uninterrupted movement from one front to the other[102], Sivas being on the main road between Angora and Erzeroum, caused indescribable suffering to the defenceless population. Like famished wolves, the Turkish soldiers ate up everything they saw, and took everything they could lay hands on. In Ketcheurd, an Armenian village east of Sivas, the women were horribly outraged by the soldiers, six of the best-looking of them being so atrociously treated that they succumbed before the very eyes of their tormentors; and this is only a typical example.

Another incident of a quite impersonal character greatly embittered the relations between the Armenians and the Turks. About 1,700 Russian prisoners of war, captured by the Turks in February, were brought to Sivas in a deplorable condition. The Russian soldiers of Moslem origin had already been released at Erzeroum, most of the Armenians had been killed, and the Russians were stripped of their clothing. On their way to Sivas they were grossly insulted, spat on by every Moslem passer-by, and whipped by their escort into quicker march. Half their number reached Sivas almost naked, covered with filthy rags, their feet swollen and in some cases with their sheepskin coats glued to their sore bodies. In face of such an outrageous treatment of these Russian prisoners, the Armenians of Sivas provided them with medical help and various comforts. This trivial manifestation of humane feeling displayed by the Armenians, however, caused great resentment among the Moslems. In spite of all such efforts, only some sixty Russians survived out of the contingent of 1,700 prisoners. The Turks picked quarrels with the Armenians when the latter tried to bury the Russian dead.

In the last days of March, Murad and other Armenian leaders were asked by the Vali of Sivas to attend a meeting for the deliberation of some important questions. Murad had, however, been privately informed by some Turkish friends that there was a plot against him and his comrades, so he very naturally failed to comply with the Vali’s request. The consequence of this was that the relatives of these men were subjected to shameful treatment at the hands of the Turks. Nevertheless, the Armenians throughout Sivas, Erzindjan, Harpout,

Tchemesh-Getzak and the other districts thought it wise to endure these persecutions, so as not to give any grounds for harsher measures. Fresh contingents of troops were sent to each village in April to collect an imaginary number of arms, and such arms were provided for the authorities in the manner already described. Courts-martial were set up in many places and people were summarily tried and sentenced. Hovhannes Poladian, Vahan Vartanian, Murad of Khourakhon and twelve other leaders were shot. Men belonging to the Dashnaktzoutioun and the Huntchak parties were subjected to 110 strokes each. These terrorising methods were carried out in thorough earnest in Oulash, Sharkishla, Kotchan, Gemerek, Gurin, Derenda, Divrig, and other districts.

More dreadful days for the Armenians began in June. On the assumption that every Armenian soldier was a deserter, and that his people at home had secreted numberless arms, the Turks never relaxed their policy of squeezing out of the Armenians every piastre they could get by employing the most brutal means. Towards the end of June and the beginning of July, massacres on a far vaster scale were carried out in various parts of the area referred to. The methods pursued in these massacres were precisely the same as everywhere else in Armenia. The men were separated from their women, and the latter driven in a south-easterly direction. The able-bodied men were first imprisoned and then massacred in small batches under blood-curdling circumstances. For the space of two weeks, Murad thinks, 5,000 Armenians were daily disposed of in the various districts of the province. At Maltepé, a village an hour’s ride east of Sivas, some twenty Armenian officials in the Government service were hacked to pieces with pointed and spiked hatchets. At Duzasar, another Armenian village near Sivas, 32 Armenians were done to death in the same manner.

At Habesh, near Zara, east of Sivas, 3,800 Armenians of the neighbourhood were poleaxed, stoned or bayoneted in a fiendish manner. In Khorsan, the headman of the village, named Nigoghos, was hanged upside down on the Boghaz bridge near the village. At Gotni, another village with 120 Armenian families, Turkish bashi-bazouks, mostly released convicts organised into “Chetti” bands, gloried in the achievement of having killed every male above twelve and outraged every woman above the same age.

At Herag, a village near Sivas, the men were killed, the young women carried away and about 600 children detained by the Vali, perhaps to be converted to Islam. The women of Malatia were stripped naked and driven out from their homes, amid the gibes and jeers of the Moslem rabble; many young women actually went mad, others resorted to hideously painful means to put an end to their lives. At Niksar, north of Sivas, most of the young women were distributed among the Turks, and the remainder were deported to the south.

During his wanderings Murad happened to see that only 300 children and old people were left in the town of Tchar-Shamba, near the coast, where there was a large, prosperous colony before. The young people of both sexes had been either killed, abducted or deported from their homes; no child above ten years of age remained among the survivors.

In the territory extending from Amasia, north-west of Sivas, to Erzindjan and Harpout, the Armenian element has been reduced to the same condition. In certain centres like Arabkir, Tchemesh-Getzak, etc., some families escaped persecution by adopting Islam.

About 15,000 Armenians of Erzindjan and the surrounding district were for the most part drowned in the Euphrates near the Kamakh gorge; the Armenians of Baibourt are also reported to have suffered the same fate in the river Kara-Su, a tributary of the Euphrates. With the exception of some thirty Armenian families at Samsoun, all Persian subjects, and a few other families spared here and there, Murad states that all along the Black Sea coast the industrious Armenian element has been uprooted from its homes and its property distributed among local or immigrant Moslems.

In the town of Sivas itself, which comprised some 25,000 Armenians, many of the important inhabitants have either been killed or deported to the deserts. There remain now some 120 Armenian families in the town, consisting mainly of children and elderly folk.

Amid this general scene of unopposed slaughter and destruction, however, there are brave deeds to record and stories of death faced heroically by both men and women.

The Armenians of Duzasar, Gavra, Khorsan, Khantzod, &c., all places in the Province of Sivas, made every possible sacrifice with a view to preventing an inter-racial outbreak in the early stages of the war; but when they were convinced that the attitude of passive resistance they had adopted did not avail in any way, they took up arms, and, supported by their compatriots of Gurin, Gemerek, Divrig, Ketch-Magara, Mandjaluk and other places, fought for days against the Moslem soldiers and bands and repaid the enemy in their own coin.

The Armenians of Shabin Kara-Hissar and Amasia, exasperated at the unaccountable savagery of the Turks, took to reprisals. They burnt down the Moslem quarters and the Government Buildings in their respective towns and temporarily drove the Turks from them. Later, however, they were overwhelmed by large Turkish forces, and died fighting to the last.

Sirpouhi and Santukht, two young women of Ketcheurd, a village east of Sivas, who were being led off to the harem by Turks, threw themselves into the river Halys, and were drowned with their infants in their arms. Mdlle. Sirpouhi, the nineteen-year-old daughter of Garabed Tufenkjian of Herag, a graduate of the American College of Marsovan, was offered the choice of saving herself by embracing Islam and marrying a Turk. Sirpouhi retorted that it was an outrage to murder her father and then make her a proposal of marriage. She would have nothing to do with a godless and a murderous people; whereupon she, and seventeen other Armenian girls who had refused conversion, were shamefully ill-treated and afterwards killed near Tchamli-Bel gorge.

The rich Shahinian family of Sivas, father, sons and one daughter, the fourteen-year-old Khanum, escaped the authorities, who wanted to capture them, and fought for four hours at the entrance of a narrow mountain pass against considerable odds. They were all killed, however, when they ran short of their cartridges.

I could prolong the story of these acts of desperate bravery on the one side and of murderous frenzy on the other. The grim reality of these horrible crimes was forcibly brought home to me when, in the course of my interview with Murad, some girls and young men, Armenians of Sivas, who were anxious to hear something of the dear ones they had left before the war, came to see Murad. They inquired about their relatives and friends, and Murad told them how and when they had been killed or deported. The percentage of murders, at any rate in the cases inquired into on this occasion, was much higher than that of the deportations. One of the girls present, on being told that everyone she had inquired about had been killed, was terribly overcome; yet she succeeded in suppressing her strong emotion, and nerved herself to take a solemn oath of remembrance, which was shared by all present.

X. SANDJAK OF KAISARIA.

The Sandjak of Kaisaria is an outlying sub-division of the Vilayet of Angora. It lies under the shadow of the Erdjies Dagh (Mount Argaios), and bestrides the course of the Kizil Irmak immediately below Sivas.

We have comparatively little testimony concerning the occurrences in this district, but the documents contained in this section show in sufficient outline what happened at Kaisaria itself, as well as at Everek and K., the only other centres of importance.

83. KAISARIA: STATEMENT BY A TRAVELLER[103] FROM KAISARIA, PUBLISHED IN THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “BALKANIAN MAMOUL,” OF ROUSTCHOUK.

The Armenians of the Kaisaria district, with the exception of Talas, have been deported. At the end of July the Government issued the following manifesto to the Armenians of Talas and Kaisaria:—

“(i) All the Armenians are to leave in batches of 1,000—the men, separated from the women, in one direction and the women in another.

“(ii) No one is to take with him more than 200 piastres (£1 13_s._ 4_d._). If, after examination, anyone proves to have more than this, he will be brought before a Council of War.

“(iii) No one has the right to sell his property, etc.[104]”

After urgent petitions this latter condition was modified as follows:—

“Anyone who has no ready money is authorised to sell property up to a maximum of 300 piastres.”

Up till now more than 80 persons have been hanged at Kaisaria, including doctors and other notables such as Hampartsoum and Boyadjian Mourad of the Huntchakist Party.

The relations of the victims themselves were compelled to take down the corpses from the gallows.

Only the women and girls were permitted to go over to Islam. When the Governor was petitioned to allow the infants to be entrusted to charitable Moslem families, to save them from dying on the journey, he replied:—

“I will not leave here so much as the odour of the Armenians; go away into the deserts of Arabia and dump your Armenia there.”

-----

Footnote 99:

Date unspecified.

Footnote 100:

See Docs. 68, 94, and 122.

Footnote 101:

Kotch Hissar.

Footnote 102:

As the Russian fleet had blockaded the Black Sea ports and transport by water was difficult, the Turks appear to have been using the Anatolian Railway to Angora, the terminus of the line, for their communications, proceeding thence to Erzeroum through Sivas by horse and camel.—[Note by the interviewer.]

Footnote 103:

Name withheld.

Footnote 104:

For other versions of the official proclamation see Doc. 120 and Annexe C. to the “Historical Summary.”

84. EVEREK: STATEMENT[105] PUBLISHED IN THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “GOTCHNAG,” OF NEW YORK, 28th AUGUST, 1915.

At Everek a bomb explosion was the signal for a terrible persecution of the Armenians. The German who narrates this adds that the Governor of Everek was a good man, and was therefore relieved of his duties and replaced by a Circassian of violent character. There had been numerous arrests and atrocities in this district. After that, the wholesale deportations were begun.

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Footnote 105:

Source unspecified.

85. K.: LETTER FROM A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT K., DATED 16th NOVEMBER, 1915; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

I wish to confirm my telegram in Turkish dated the 12th November, stating that the authorities had begun to send away our Armenian teachers, and that we did not understand the reason for this.

I must now add to this that all our Armenian teachers have been deported, having left for the south by wagon yesterday. Two of them had been started in another direction last week, but were brought back to go south. One of these, however, had become insane from fright, and is left temporarily in our hands. It is doubtful whether he can recover under present conditions.

Our local Mudir gives us assurances that our school and pupils will not be interfered with, and we are going on as best we can, loading most of the extra work on to ourselves and our Greek teachers. Children of Armenian parents who have changed their faith are leaving, but so far others remain. What to do with children left on our hands without support is a serious problem.

The head of the orphanage at J. has left also, and I understand that the institution is in a very precarious, chaotic condition. What the outcome will be I do not know.

The members of our Armenian circle are well, but the long-drawn-out nervous strain is telling on some. Routine school work has not been stopped for an hour, and goes on quietly, as if nothing whatever were happening about us. But to accomplish this, some quick shifts have had to be made, and, as our Turkish friends say, “Idaré-i-maslahat.”

XI. THE TOWN OF X.

We are better informed as to what happened in this town than in regard to any other place where the Ottoman Government’s design against the Armenians was put into execution. The documents relating to it, contained in this section, are so full of personal detail that it has been necessary, in consideration for the safety of those concerned, to conceal the town’s identity, though in this case, as in others, it is almost impossible to disguise it effectively to anyone acquainted with Asiatic Turkey.

The people of X. were a very typical Armenian urban community, and the story of their destruction represents, in its main features, what happened to innumerable other Armenian communities throughout the Ottoman Empire. The only peculiar feature at X. was the extent to which forcible conversion was attempted by the local authorities. It may also be noted that here, as at Trebizond, there was no intention of forwarding the exiles to their nominal destination. The convoys were butchered en masse as soon as they reached the next town on the road.

86. X.: NARRATIVE OF THE PRINCIPAL OF THE COLLEGE AT X., COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

The trouble for the Armenians began, as for all other nationalities, with the collection of soldiers. The Government swept off all men possible for military service. Hundreds of the bread-winners marched away, leaving their wives and children without means of support. In many cases, the last bit of money was given to fit out the departing soldier, leaving the family in a pitifully destitute condition. A number of Armenians were quite well off and paid their military exemption fee. A much larger number escaped in one way and another, so there were more Armenians than Turks left in the city after the soldiers had gone. This made the Government suspicious and fearful. The discovery of Armenian plots against the Government in other places added to this feeling.

The special Armenian troubles began in the beginning of May. In the middle of the night, about twenty of the leading men of the national Armenian political parties were gathered up and sent to where they have been imprisoned ever since. In June the Government began looking for weapons. Some of the Armenians were seized, and, by torture, the confession was extracted that a large number of arms were in the hands of different Armenians. A second inquisition began. The bastinado was used frequently, as well as fire torture (in some cases eyes are said to have been put out). Many guns were delivered up, but not all. The people were afraid that, if they gave up their arms, they would be massacred as in 1895. Arms had been brought in after the declaration of the Constitution with the permission of the Government, and were for self-defence only. The torture continued, and under its influence one fact after another leaked out. Under the nervous strain and physical suffering, many things were said which had no foundation in fact. Those inflicting the torture would tell the victim what they expected him to confess, and then beat him until he did it. The college mechanic had constructed an iron “shot” for the athletic games, and was beaten terribly in an effort to fasten the making of bombs on to the college. Some bombs were discovered in the Armenian cemetery, which aroused the fury of the Turks to white heat. It should be said that it is very probable that these bombs had been buried there in the days of Abd-ul-Hamid.

On Saturday, the 26th June, about 1 p.m., the gendarmes went through the town gathering up all the Armenian men they could find—old and young, rich and poor, sick and well. In some cases houses were broken into, and sick men dragged from their beds. They were imprisoned in the barracks, and during the next few days were sent off towards Y. in batches of from thirty to one hundred and fifty. They were sent on foot, and many were robbed of shoes and other articles of clothing. Some were in chains. The first batch reached Y. and sent word from various places. (It is said that this was a scheme of the Government in order to encourage the rest. None of the rest have been heard from. Various reports have been circulated, the only one generally accepted being that they were killed. One Greek driver reported seeing the mound under which they were buried. Another man, in touch with the Government, in answer to a direct question, admitted that the men had been killed.)

Through the intervention of a Turk, the college was able to free those of its teachers already taken, and obtain a stay of proceedings against all its teachers and employees, by the payment of the sum of 275 Turkish liras. Later, this same Turk said that he believed that he could obtain the permanent exemption of the entire college group by the payment of a further sum of 300 liras. The money was promised, but after some negotiations, which showed that no definite assurance of exemption would be forthcoming, the matter was dropped.

Following the sending of the batches of Armenians in the direction of Y., criers went through the streets of the town announcing that all male Armenians between the ages of fifteen and seventy were to report at the barracks. The announcement further stated that their refusal to obey would result in their being killed and their houses being burned. The Armenian priests went from house to house, advising the people to obey this announcement. Those reporting at the barracks were sent away in batches, the result being that within a few days practically all the Armenian men were removed from the city.

On the 3rd or 4th July, the order was issued that the women and children should be ready to leave on the following Wednesday. The people were informed that one ox-cart was to be provided by the Government for each house, and that they could carry only one day’s food supply, a few piastres, and a small bundle of clothing. The people made preparation for carrying out these orders by selling whatever household possessions they could in the streets. Articles were sold at less than 10 per cent. of their usual value, and Turks from the neighbouring villages filled the streets, hunting for bargains. In some places these Turks took articles by force, but the Government punished all such cases when detected.

On the 5th July, before the order for the expulsion of the women was carried out, one of our staff went to the Government to protest against the execution of this order in the name of humanity. He was told that this order did not originate with the local officials, but that the orders had come from those higher up not to leave a single Armenian in the city. The commandant, however, promised to leave the college to the last, and gave permission for all people connected with the American institutions to move into the college compound. This they did, and at one time over three hundred Armenians were living on the college premises.

The population had been ordered to be ready to start on Wednesday. But on Tuesday, about 3.30 a.m., the ox-carts appeared at the doors of the first district to be removed, and the people were ordered to start at once. Some were dragged from their beds without even sufficient clothing. All the morning the ox-carts creaked out of the town, laden with women and children and, here and there, a man who had escaped the previous deportations. The women and girls all wore the Turkish costume, that their faces might not be exposed to the gaze of drivers and gendarmes—a brutal lot of men brought in from other regions. In many cases the husbands and brothers of these same women were away in the army, fighting for the Turkish Government.

The panic in the city was terrible. The people felt that the Government was determined to exterminate the Armenian race, and they were powerless to resist. The people were sure that the men were being killed and the women kidnapped. Many of the convicts in the prison had been released, and the mountains round X. were full of bands of outlaws. It was feared that the women and children were taken some distance from the city and left to the mercy of these men. However that may be, there are provable cases of the kidnapping of attractive young girls by the Turkish officials of X. One Moslem reported that a gendarme had offered to sell him two girls for a medjidia.[106] The women believed that they were going to worse than death, and many carried poison in their pockets to use if necessary. Some carried picks and shovels to bury those they knew would die by the wayside. During this reign of terror, notice was given that escape was easy—that anyone who accepted Islam would be allowed to remain safely at home. The offices of the lawyers who recorded applications were crowded with people petitioning to become Mohammedans. Many did it for the sake of their women and children, feeling that it would be a matter of only a few weeks before relief would come.

This deportation continued at intervals for about two weeks. It is estimated that, out of about 12,000 Armenians in X., only a few hundred were left. Even those who offered to accept Islam were sent away. At the time of writing, no definite word has been heard any of these batches. (One Greek driver reported that, at a little village a few hours from X., the few men were separated from the women, beaten and chained, and sent on in a separate batch. A Turkish driver reported seeing the convoy two days journey from X. The people were so covered with dust that features were scarcely distinguishable.) Even if the lives of these exiles are being protected, it is a question how many will be able to endure the hardships of the journey over the hot, dusty hills, with no protection from the sun, with poor food and little water, and the ever-present fear of death, or some worse fate.

Most of the Armenians in the X. district were absolutely hopeless. Many said that it was worse than a massacre. No one knew what was coming, but all felt that it was the end. Even the pastors and leaders could offer no word of encouragement or hope. Many began to doubt even the existence of God. Under the severe strain many individuals became demented, some of them permanently. There were also some examples of the greatest heroism and faith, and some started out on the journey courageously and calmly, saying in farewell: “Pray for us. We shall not see you again in this world, but sometime we shall meet again.”

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Footnote 106:

About 3_s._ 2_d._

87. X.: ADDRESS DELIVERED IN AMERICA, 13th DECEMBER, 1915, BY A PROFESSOR FROM THE COLLEGE AT X.; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

On the 1st June of this year (1915), the town in Asiatic Turkey from which I come had a population of 25,000, half of which was Armenian and the other half Turkish. When I left X. on the 18th August, the 12,000 Armenians, who comprised the Armenian half of the city’s population, had either been driven into exile or done to death. What happened to the Armenians of X. is but a specimen of what has happened to these poor people in every other city of Asia Minor and Armenia.

Over fifty years ago, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions established a mission station at X., which during the intervening years had grown into an important religious, educational and medical centre. We had there a boys’ college with 425 students, nearly all of whom were boarders, who came from all parts of Asia Minor, from the Balkan States and from Russia. We also had a girls’ boarding school with 276 pupils enrolled. Besides these we had a large hospital, which had recently been newly equipped at great expense. Here the American physician and the Armenian nurses, in addition to the ordinary large work of the hospital, were caring for sick soldiers of the Ottoman Army under the auspices of the American Red Cross Society. About half the constituency of these three institutions was Armenian. More than half the teachers and professors in the schools and nearly all the nurses of the hospital belonged to that same race, which all through the Christian centuries has been the vanguard of Christian civilisation on the frontiers of Christendom against the heathen and Mohammedan hosts of Asia, and which has been the first to respond to and co-operate with modern missionary effort in the Near East.

Now there remains not a single Armenian teacher or pupil in our mission college at X., out of the more than 200 who were there before the war began. All have been sent away by the order of the highest Government authorities, into exile or to death. With unspeakable brutality, the innocent young women teachers and pupils of the girls’ school, who were remaining in the school for the summer vacation on account of the difficulties of travelling to their homes, were carried off by the Turkish gendarmes under Government orders; but with equal heroism and courage the American principal of the girls’ school rescued 41 of them from death, or a condition worse than that, after nearly a month’s pursuit over rough and dangerous roads.

With insensate cruelty and wickedness, the young women nurses of the hospital, who were risking their lives in nursing soldiers of the Turkish Army sick with the deadly typhus fever, were driven away by the gendarmes just like the rest of their unfortunate sisters. The American physician in charge of our hospital begged the Turkish officers in charge of the deportation to spare the nurses who were serving their own soldiers. These officers declared that they were ordered by their superiors to make no exceptions whatsoever; but, because the doctor begged so hard, four out of the dozen nurses would be allowed to remain temporarily and continue their work of mercy. That left the doctor to perform the heart-rending task of selecting those who should go and those who should remain. It was like casting pearls before swine when he made them draw lots to decide their fate. Some of the best and most experienced nurses drew lots to go. One who held a diploma from one of the leading London hospitals, who was a pioneer in the nurses’ profession in Asia Minor, and who was known as the Florence Nightingale of Armenia, was taken away with the young women of the girls’ school. She was not rescued with the 41 fortunate ones. Though great in soul, she was lame and not comely in form, and on this account she has probably been allowed to perish by the way instead of being reserved for a life of shame.

It is now my purpose to show you, as best I can, by narrating facts out of my recent experience at X. in connection with these events, how the work of this great mission station in Asia Minor, a work in which I have been engaged as a missionary for ten years, a work in which hundreds of our American people have a deep and personal interest, and in which they have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars of their hard-earned money and the life work of a score of devoted missionaries, was suddenly and brutally interrupted by the Turkish Government on the 10th and 12th August of this year. You will see, incidentally, how this work of destruction illustrates the deep laid and carefully executed plans of the Turkish Government for the assassination and annihilation of the Armenian people. You will see how that Government scorned and flouted all the efforts of the missionaries and of the diplomatic representatives of our Government to save the lives and the honour of innocent women and girls. You will also see how it is possible for Christian men and women to bear faithful witness to their faith in this twentieth Christian century in a persecution not less in intensity, and greater in magnitude, than any that was ever inflicted on the early Christian martyrs by the most cruel of the pagan Roman emperors. It may astonish you to hear it, but it is true nevertheless, that there are living in the world to-day men who are the equals of Nero in cruelty.

On my way from X. to Constantinople,[107] I saw at least 50,000 people, three-fourths of whom were women and children, who had been torn from their homes and all their earthly possessions, and driven into the fields along the railway line without any shelter or any adequate means of subsistence, hungry, sick and perishing, awaiting the conveniences of the railway traffic to be crowded like sheep into the goods trucks, to be carried away eastward to die in the deserts, if they did not perish or disappear in Turkish harems on the way. I saw hundreds of mothers whose hearts were being broken by the cries of their hungry children, whom they had no hope of being able to succour or to save. The officials of the German railway were co-operating with the corrupt officials of the Turkish Government to extort all the money they could from this doleful throng. The 50,000 whom I saw represented but a brief section of the procession which has been passing along that way for months.[108] A very moderate estimate of the number of people who have perished in this way places the figure at 500,000; and still they go on!

I have received the farewell kiss and parting embrace of men, cultured Christian gentlemen, some of whom held university degrees from our best American institutions in this country, men with whom I have co-operated and at whose side I have laboured for ten years in the work of education in that land, while at their side stood brutal gendarmes, sent there by the highest authorities of the Government to drive them away with their wives and children from their homes, from their work, and from all the associations which they held most dear, into exile or to death, and some of them to a condition worse than either. We had no better friends in this world than those people were. To part with them under such circumstances was harder than I can say, and yet but few tears were shed on either side. Our feelings were too deep for idle tears! I have often seen pictures of the early Christian martyrs crouching together in the arena of the Coliseum, expecting at any moment to be torn in pieces by the hungry lions which were being turned loose upon them, while the eager spectators were watching from their safe seats, and waiting to be amused by that spectacle. And I had supposed that such cruelties and such amusements were impossible in this twentieth Christian century. But I was mistaken. I have seen 62 Armenian women and girls, between the ages of 15 and 25, huddled together in the rooms of the principal of our American girls’ school at X., while outside were waiting men more cruel than beasts, ready to carry them off; and these men were demanding, backed by the highest authorities of the Government, that we should deliver these defenceless girls into their brutal hands, for them to do with them what they would. I had supposed that there was no man in the world to-day who could be amused by such a spectacle as that. In this, too, I was mistaken, for when the wife of our American Ambassador at Constantinople made a personal appeal to Talaat Bey, the Minister of the Interior in the Turkish Cabinet—the man who more than anyone else has devised and executed this deportation of the Armenians, and who has boasted that he has been able to destroy more Armenians in 30 days than Abd-ul-Hamid was able to destroy in 30 years—when she made an appeal to this Turkish Minister, begging him to stop this cruel persecution of Armenian women and girls, the only answer she got from him was: “All this amuses us!”

I will now narrate some of the more important events leading up to this climax.

We were surprised on the morning of the last Wednesday in April to learn that the professor of Armenian in our college had been arrested during the previous night along with a number[109] of the other leading Armenians of the city. We found upon inquiry that all these men were or had been members of one or the other of the Armenian nationalist societies, the Hunchakists or the Dashnakists[110]. These societies had a legal existence under the Turkish Government. They had up till quite recently been on good terms with the Government of the Young Turks. They co-operated with the party of Union and Progress in overthrowing the tyranny of Abd-ul-Hamid in 1908. They desired to co-operate with the Turks in establishing an enlightened constitutional Government in Turkey. But recently, when the policy of destroying the Armenians was determined upon, it seems that the Government thought it advisable to hit the leading members of the Armenian nationalist societies first. A number of the prominent members of these societies were hanged in Constantinople. Those arrested in our city were held in prison for a few days. Then they were sent to the capital of the province, where they were tortured and exposed to the contagion of typhus fever. Within six weeks of their arrest, their families received notice through the Government officials that not any of them remained alive. The wife of our professor was a cultured young woman, who had taught for years in our girls’ school. She was left a widow with one child, a little girl. She remained alone in her home, but not for long; for, some weeks after, when all the people were deported from her quarter of the city, she was carried away along with the rest. I saw her, dressed in the costume of a Turkish woman, leading her little girl by the hand as she passed by our college gate on the morning she was driven out, with hundreds of other women and children, on to the roads, to be captured or to die.

During the month of May, the Government was active in enlisting into the Army the Armenian young men whom they had not already enrolled. The majority of them were already serving under the colours, having been called out in the early months of the war. Some of our Armenian students had already been advanced to the position of officers in the Turkish Army because of their superior education and intelligence. Those who remained were now being called out and sent away. Some, who could afford it, paid the exemption tax of £44 (Turkish—about £40 sterling), and remained at home. Those who went with these last contingents, as a rule, were not allowed to bear arms, but were forced to do menial labour, such as building roads and carrying baggage, most of the horses and donkeys which had been requisitioned from the poor people in the early months of the war having died from rough usage or neglect.

In the month of June the Government repeatedly published an edict, by criers in the streets, ordering all the people to give up their weapons of every kind to the police. It was not at all strange that the Armenians should possess some weapons. It was the custom of the country, because of the insecurity of life and property there, for all who could afford it to possess some means of self-defence. It was obvious that this order was intended only for the Armenians, as they alone were compelled to obey it, whereas their Mohammedan neighbours, who possessed at least as many weapons as they did, were not compelled to obey it. This fact aroused the suspicions of the Armenians, because they remembered that on previous occasions, when the Turks contemplated a massacre of Armenians, they began by disarming them. Many Armenians hesitated on this account to give up their arms, and none of them would have done so if they had suspected what plans the Turks had in store for them. However, the Government took special pains on this occasion to reassure the Armenians, promising them protection and security if they would give up their arms. They were told that they could prove their loyalty only by obeying the order, and they were threatened with the severest punishment if they should refuse. In spite of many misgivings, most of the Armenians gave up their arms; and some of them, to prove their loyalty, actually assisted the Government in disarming their own people. Only a very few held out against the order and hid their weapons in their houses or in their gardens. Persons suspected of doing this were arrested and taken to the Government Building, where they were subjected to the cruellest forms of torture. Usually they were bound and bastinadoed until they became unconscious. Boiling water was often poured on the soles of the feet, to increase the pain of the bastinadoing. The victim was usually ordered to confess that he was guilty of conspiracy against the Government. Often he was ordered to implicate others; and to escape the terrible pain of the torture they would say almost anything they were told to say. These declarations made under torture were used as evidence against others. At least two men of our city died under this torture. Two of our own employees were subjected to it, the one a gate-keeper and the other a blacksmith, who did general repair work about our premises. I saw two gendarmes leading this man out of our front gate one afternoon in June. They took him to the Government Building. There they bound him, and four brutal men stuffed his mouth with filth and beat him with rods all over the body until he became unconscious. As soon as he regained consciousness, they repeated the process. Apparently their intention was to kill him by torture, and they would have done so if it had not been for the timely intervention of a friendly gendarme, a Circassian, who had been in our employment and who knew the Armenian who was being tortured. He intervened and rescued the man from his tormentors, and carried him home on his own back after it was dark enough to escape observation. He was saved, but not for long. When he had recovered, a month after[111], he was carried away, with his wife and two small children, in the general deportation. We learned afterwards that the occasion for this man’s torture was that he was seen casting a 16-pound shot, which we had ordered him to make for our college field-day sports this year. The man who saw him reported to the police that he had been making bombs!

After having weakened the Armenians to the extent of having sent most of the young men into the Army, and of having terrorised the rest, one night, toward the end of June,[112] suddenly, without any warning, the houses of almost all the Armenians who still remained in the city were forcibly entered by the police and gendarmes. The men were arrested and held as prisoners in the soldiers’ barracks at one side of the city. The whole number amounted to 1,213. Two more of our leading Armenian professors were arrested on this occasion.[113] After being held a few days, a very few, by paying very large sums of money[114] as bribes to the officials, were allowed to become Mohammedans, and were let out, to be sent away in a few days in the opposite direction to the rest. The rest were told that they were to be sent away into exile to Mosul, in the deserts of Mesopotamia, six or seven hundred miles away.

Now the Government did not intend that any of these men should reach that destination. Its purpose was extermination, not simply deportation. While they were still held in the barracks, the commander of gendarmerie, who had the business of their deportation in charge, called at the mission compound, and talked freely about the deportation of the Armenians in the presence of all the American men in our station. He said that not one out of a thousand would ever reach Mosul, and that if any of them did arrive there they could not survive, because of the hostility of the nomads in those regions, and because of the impossibility of gaining a livelihood there when deprived of all their resources, as these Armenians had been. “Orada Christiyanliq olmaz” was the Turkish expression which he used, which means: “Over there Christianity is impossible.” The Government’s purpose was to get rid of Christianity in the Ottoman Empire by getting rid of the Christians. The mayor of our city told our American Consular Agent[115] that the Government intended first to get rid of the Armenians, and then of the Greeks, and finally of the foreigners, and so to have Turkey for the Turks. Enver Pasha said the same thing to our Ambassador. These 1,213 men of whom I spoke, after being held for a few days, were bound together in small batches of five or six men each and sent off at night, in companies of from 50 to 150, under the escort of gendarmes. Some 15 miles from the city[116] they were set upon by the gendarmes and by bandits called chettis, and cruelly murdered with axes. These chettis were criminals who had been turned loose from the prisons of Constantinople and the cities of the interior, and set upon the roads for the express purpose of preying upon the Armenians, as they were being driven along the roads. One of the gendarmes who helped to drive these 1,213 men away, boasted to our French teacher that he had killed 50 Armenians with his own hands, and had obtained from their persons £150 Turkish. The chief of the police at X. stated that none of these 1,213 men remained alive. Our Consular Agent visited the scene of this slaughter in August,[117] and brought back with him Turkish “nufus teskeriés,” or identification papers, taken from the bodies of the victims. I personally saw these papers. They were all besmeared with blood.[118]

The motive which the Government claimed for all these cruelties was military necessity. They said that the Armenians were a disloyal element in the population, which it was necessary to weaken in order that they might not hit them in the back while they were engaged in war with the foreign foe. This was only a pretext. The real motive was a compound of religious fanaticism, jealousy, greed for loot and bestial lust. This was evident from what followed. If their motive had been to weaken the Armenians in order to protect themselves from attack, they had succeeded in doing this in a most thorough manner. The Armenians were now quite helpless. All the strong men had been sent into the Army, or killed, or sent into exile. All that now remained were the women and children and old men. But when the Government had reduced the Armenians to this helpless state, they decided to exterminate the rest. Criers were sent through the streets[119] announcing to the people that all the Armenians were to be deported. Not a single person with an Armenian name, whether rich or poor, old or young, sick or well, male or female, was to be left in the city. They were to have three days to prepare to go.

This announcement produced great consternation among the people. They came in great numbers to the mission compound, begging us to advise them what to do, bringing their money, jewels and other valuables and asking us to keep them for them. Some of them offered to give us their children, knowing that it would be impossible to keep them alive on that terrible journey. The promise of three days was not kept. The very next morning, the local police with gendarmes well armed with Mauser rifles began to enter the Armenian houses, drive the women and children into the streets, and lock the doors of their homes behind them and seal them with the Government’s seal, thus dispossessing them of all their worldly possessions. They then assigned four or five persons to each of the ox-carts which they had brought with them to send the people away with. The carts were not intended to carry the people. They had to walk beside them. The carts were for carrying a pillow and a single bed-covering for each person. When they had gotten from five hundred to a thousand persons ready in this manner, they were set moving, a doleful procession, driven by gendarmes along the roads toward the east. Morning after morning, during the month of July, we saw groups of this kind pass by the college compound, the women carrying their babies in their arms and leading their little children by the hand, without anything left in this world, starting on a hopeless journey of a thousand miles into the wilderness, to die miserably or to be captured by Turks. By the end of July the city had been emptied in this manner of its 12,000 Armenian inhabitants. Only the Armenians in the mission compound remained. Fearing for their safety, we had tried to get into communication with Constantinople. All our telegrams for this purpose were intercepted by the Government. When we complained to the Governor that he was cutting us off from communication with our Ambassador, he frankly informed us that we would not be allowed to communicate with our Ambassador. This had a sinister meaning to us. It was a threat not only against the Armenians in our compound, but also against us. The Governor had declared consistently from the beginning that he would deport all the Armenians in our compound as soon as it suited his convenience. All channels of communication having failed, we sent off to Constantinople one of our Greek tutors, and following him one of our English tutors, to carry information of our situation to our Ambassador in Constantinople. They reported the Governor’s threats to Mr. Morgenthau. He promptly visited Talaat Bey, the Minister of the Interior, and Enver Pasha, the Minister of War, and obtained from both these men their unqualified assurance that they would send orders to the local authorities at X. ordering them to exempt the Armenians in our schools and hospital from the general deportation. He sent repeated telegrams to this effect to our Consular Agent, whom he had ordered to come to X. to look after our interests. In this matter these ministers seem to have told a direct lie to our Ambassador, or else their subordinate officers refused to obey their orders, in which case the country would have been in a state of anarchy. But there was no sign of any anarchy in all these transactions and dealings with the Armenians. There were no mob outbreaks. Everything seemed to be under perfect control and to be carried through with military precision. When our Consular Agent showed the telegram from our Ambassador to the local Governor, he stated that he had received the exact contrary orders, and that furthermore he knew that he would not receive any other orders. Our Consular Agent, desiring to make a full report on the situation to the Ambassador, left for his post at L. on the 9th August.

The next morning, the 10th August, there appeared at the front gate of our mission compound the chief of the police of the city, with the local police force and a company of gendarmes and ox-carts. They demanded that we should admit them to the compound and should order the Armenians in our premises to come out and get ready to leave. The President of the college reminded them of the assurances we had received from Constantinople, and said that we could not allow them to enter our premises with our consent. If they wished to enter, they would have to use force and accept the responsibility therefor. They replied that if we dared to resist their authority in any way, we would be hanged just like any Ottoman subject. The Capitulations had now all been abolished, and we no longer had any rights or special privileges. They hesitated, however, to use force for a time, and sent one of their number to the Governor, asking for instructions. We also sent our doctor at the same time to do what he could in our behalf. They met in the Governor’s office. The policeman reported to the Governor that the Americans were resisting their authority. The Governor gave orders to enter the premises by force and take out all the Armenians. They gathered up a squad of some 25 more gendarmes, and returned and entered the compound by force. They drove their ox-carts in and unyoked their oxen. It was a group of nomads coming to destroy a more civilised community. The gendarmes entered the college buildings and our own American residences, and drove out at the end of their rifles all the Armenians they could find. Our professors with their families were taking refuge in our houses. In the college buildings were the Armenian servants and employees connected with the institutions. They drove out all these, with our own personal servants, some of them young Armenian women, and assigned them to ox-carts just as they had done to the people of the city in the days before. They collected 71 people on our college premises in this way. When they were ready to go, we took our last sad farewell of these people with whom we had worked for years, and among whom were some of the best friends we had in the world. They had no adequate food supply. We reminded the Governor of their needs, and he promised to detain them over-night at the Armenian monastery two miles out of the city, in order that a food supply might be got ready. The college bakery was kept busy over-night baking hard tack. Early in the morning a wagon-load was taken to the monastery, but it was found that the Governor had not kept his word. The professors and their families had been hurried on as fast as possible. They had not been allowed to stop at the monastery. They had been driven on without food. We have never heard anything about that party from our college compound from that day to this, except from some of the gendarmes who took them away. They said that the men had been separated from the women out on the road, taken to one side and killed. The women had been sent on, to be disposed of as those who went before had been.

Two days after, on the 12th August, the chief of the police, with the local police force and a few gendarmes, came to the mission compound again and demanded the young women of the girls’ school. The whole forenoon was spent by the missionaries in arguing with the police, and in trying to prevent them from taking the young women away. The Principal at one time thought it would be better to have them all shot in the school garden than to give them into the hands of those brutal men. When further resistance proved useless, the girls were prepared for the journey with food, clothing and money. Their American principal[120] tried to get permission to go with them. This was denied at first. Afterwards she was allowed to go as far as Y., the first day’s journey. Fourteen wagons bore away the 62 young women from the school compound at two o’clock in the afternoon of the 12th August. Some beastly looking gendarmes were escorting them. At the edge of the city the procession was halted. While they waited, the Governor sent for the President of the college to come out and witness what was done, in order, as he said, that he might see that no undue pressure was brought to bear upon these young women to change their faith. The police asked each of the young women whether they would deny their faith and become Mohammedans, to save themselves from that terrible journey. All 62 refused. Two miles out on the road the same thing was repeated. All refused again. The first night they reached Y., and were kept in a field by the city over-night. The next morning the American principal furnished them with an extra supply of food and money, and then the Governor of Y. ordered her to leave the girls and return home. She arrived back at X. on the evening of the 13th August very sad, expecting never to see any of her girls again. After four days she was granted permission to visit the Governor of the Province at Z., hoping she might be able to persuade him to order the return of her girls. She caught up with the party just this side of Z. She found that 21 of the 62 girls had been carried away and lost—41 still remained. These she was allowed to take to the compound of the American school in Z.[121] While they were waiting there, she succeeded in persuading the Governor to allow her to take the 41 remaining girls back to X. The party arrived back there on the 6th September, after nearly a month’s absence on the road. Thus these brutal men were cheated out of some of their choicest prey. These 41 girls were all that were left of the city’s 12,000 Armenian inhabitants who had not been exiled or killed or compelled to turn Mohammedan. What happened at X. is but a specimen of what happened to every other town in Asia Minor.[122]

Now the question arises—What do we think about all this, and how do we feel? We all know what we think and how we feel. But the more practical question—What are we going to do about it?—is more difficult to answer. Most of these people are beyond our help. But small groups such as I have described still remain in some of our mission stations, which are accessible to help through our Board. Many have escaped to Russia, where they are accessible to help through the Armenian Relief Committee. These poor people deserve our help.

The Preliminary Report by the same author contains certain passages not included in the preceding Address, which give additional information and are therefore appended here.

(a) The nervous strain and mental agony which our people had to endure during the month of July was terrible. They were hanging suspended between the hope that the American Ambassador would be able to do something for them and the fear that they might at any time have to suffer the terrible fate of those that had gone on before them. This dread of what might befall his wife and daughter made one of our professors temporarily insane. All were tormented with the terrible temptation to save themselves by denying their faith. They reasoned with themselves that they could profess Islam with the mental reservation that, as soon as the storm was over, they would again outwardly profess their loyalty to their true faith. About fifty members of the Protestant church and congregation yielded to this temptation, as did also a larger number of the Gregorians. Merely declaring their wish to become Mohammedans by no means insured their safety. Only the rich and powerful, and those few whom the Governor thought he could use to advantage, were accepted upon the payment of large sums of money. He was said, on good authority, to have enriched himself by £20,000 (Turkish) in this way. Many who professed Islam and paid money were deported, but usually in the opposite direction and with the understanding that they might return to their homes after a time. Some of these new recruits to Islam seemed to have their characters completely undermined. In order to show their loyalty to their new faith, they assisted the persecutors of their own people. One of our students, the son of the richest man in the city, who became a Mohammedan, stood at our gate on the day that the professors and students were deported and actually informed the gendarmes that one of the young men who had been his fellow student was missing. They went back and found him.

(b) On the 11th August, a Turkish doctor, who was the medical instructor for the Vilayet of Z., called on us and stated that he did not approve of the deportation of women and children, and that he would try to save three Armenian girls by taking them with him to Constantinople. One of the teachers of the girls’ school, a nurse from the hospital and a pupil of the girls’ school, whose home was in Constantinople, ventured to accept his offer. They prepared themselves for the journey by dressing themselves in Turkish women’s costumes, so as not to attract any attention along the road. On the first night of their journey, this doctor tried to force these three young women to become Mohammedans and enter the houses of his friends. He persisted in his arguments through the whole of the first night, but they stood firm, and then he declared that he would send them back to X., and give them into the possession of the Turkish officials there who desired them. The next morning he sent them back under the charge of his servant. On the road back to X. they met the convoy carrying away the girls from the girls’ school, and made themselves known by crying out to Miss A., who went to their assistance, and learned what had befallen them during the night. They begged Miss A. to get their release, in order that they might go off into exile with the rest of the girls and teachers; and the young men who had them in charge delivered them over into Miss A.’s charge, she signing a receipt that she had received them. They declared that even exile and the terrible things that might befall them by the way seemed like heaven to them after the experiences they had gone through the previous night. I tried for a month to get permission to bring the teacher in this party with us to America before she was carried away, but even the efforts of the American Ambassador on her behalf were unavailing.

The following passage is taken from the letter (dated 1st/14th October, 1915, and written by an acquaintance who interviewed the author of the preceding Address at Athens) which has been quoted already in a preceding footnote.

Two families accepted Mohammedanism at the beginning. One was the family of Professor B. with his three grown-up daughters, who were immediately required to marry Turks; the other was the family of Mr. C., a notable of the town. Both families were Protestants. The authorities allowed D.’s family to remain at X., as they wanted D. to take photographs of the bombs and guns found in the possession of the “rebels”—all such guns and bombs having been specially placed by the authorities to be photographed. D. found life unbearable as a Christian and also accepted Mohammedanism after some time. Professors E. and F., both of whose mothers are Germans, from the German colony of M., near Y., were rescued by the German colonists, and remained with them up to the time my friend (the author of the preceding Address) left X. The Kaimakam of X. said that they had only escaped for the moment, and that he would get at them, too, in the end.

Two Turks of X. were hanged for sheltering or offering to shelter some Armenian friends of theirs.

-----

Footnote 107:

The witness started from X. on the 18th August.—_Preliminary Report dated 7th October, 1915, from the witness’ hand._

Footnote 108:

“At Mirkedjia alone, the station-master told us there were 30,000 exiles. Many were weak from hunger, others almost dead.”—P.R.

Footnote 109:

“Twenty-five.”—P.R.

Footnote 110:

“This Professor had relinquished his association with this society before entering our employment.”—P.R.

Footnote 111:

“He remained unconscious for a day, and could not walk for a month.”—P.R.

Footnote 112:

“The 26th June.”—P.R.

Footnote 113:

“Professors E. and FF.”—P.R.

Footnote 114:

“£275 Turkish, in all.”—P.R.

Footnote 115:

“Mr. AL.”—P.R.

Footnote 116:

“On the road to W.”—P.R.

Footnote 117:

“A German farmer reported to our Consular Agent that he had seen 50 Armenian corpses in a well, and long trenches on the mountain side where other victims had been buried.”—P.R.

Footnote 118:

The author of the present address gave further particulars of these men’s fate to an acquaintance who interviewed him at Athens on his way from Turkey to the United States. This gentleman is the author of the letter dated Athens, 8th/21st July, Doc. 8 of this collection. The information he obtained from his interview with the author of the present document is presented in a subsequent letter, dated Athens, 1st/14th October, 1915, from which the following paragraph is taken:—

“The Kavass of the College, a Circassian, who was ordered to accompany the deported Armenians, returned a day or two afterwards and told how these 1,200 men or more were roped together in rows of five, and were marched towards Y. On each side rode zaptiehs with fixed bayonets. Those who could not walk were flogged, and finally, when any one of the five in a batch could walk no further, the whole five would be made to fall out of the procession and several zaptiehs would remain with them, who, after ten or twenty minutes, would rejoin the column with the ghost of butchery shining in their eyes. Somewhat more than half the prisoners reached Y. On their arrival at that town a fire broke out in the Armenian quarter, and the Turks began looting and massacring the women of Y., while the newly arrived prisoners were accused of being the incendiaries, and were all led out of the town to a place already prepared. Here the prisoners were halted and led in successive batches of five to what appeared to be tents. Groans were heard from within, and the prisoners outside, realising what was happening, tried to break through the cordon. But they were bound hand to hand, and when one or two in any batch had been shot, the survivors could only trail the corpses along with them until they gave up the effort in exhaustion. They were all picked up afterwards and carried off to be butchered. They were butchered with axes.”

Footnote 119:

“On the 2nd July.”—P.R.

Footnote 120:

“Miss A.”—P.R.

Footnote 121:

“At Z. the servants were separated from the teachers and pupils and sent southwards towards V.”—P.R.

Footnote 122:

“The town of L. was similarly emptied of its Armenian population; also Y., BT. and U.”—P.R.

88. X.: STATEMENT BY MISS AA., A FOREIGN TRAVELLER IN TURKEY; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

The feud between the Armenians and the Turks is of very long standing. The Armenian nation is the only one of all the peoples conquered by the Turkish nation which has not yielded to the demand of the Turkish Government that they should give up their religion and become Mohammedans. When the relations between the two nations became settled after their many wars, the Armenians were given much religious freedom, but with that freedom came also many oppressive measures which have been very hard to bear. The Armenian, through all the centuries, has been exempt from military service. In place of that, each male member of the Armenian families paid a small poll-tax. This freedom from military service gave the young men an opportunity to engage in trade.

The nation is a nation of great traders. They travel easily and are keen in every financial relation. As a result, when the young Turks came back from their military service they found in all the large cities that the young Armenians had seized all the opportunities in trade. The soldiers have always felt that they had the right to loot these unfortunate persons, and this has been most systematically done for centuries.

When Huriet[123] came in, the privilege of military service was given to the Armenians, and it was announced in many public meetings that the fraternity between Armenians and Turks was to be complete.

Before this time, the Armenians had not been allowed to carry arms, but the Committee of Union and Progress advised them to carry personal arms, as the Turks had done for many years. There have been among the Armenians what have been called “National Societies.” These societies have been more or less revolutionary and nihilistic in character, but they have also been very useful in promoting the advancement and education of the Armenian people, and since Huriet their revolutionary propaganda has been very much lessened. But it was these societies that furnished arms for the men who could afford to pay for them, and it is claimed by the Turkish Government that they also hid in various cities bombs and reserve arms, which were to be used against the Turkish Government when opportunity arose.

In many cities such bombs have been found hidden. It is very difficult to find absolute evidence for the truth of political statements made by any party in Turkey, but it is true that these revolutionary societies had, in certain centres, hidden bombs for the defence of the people. Whether their plans included definite insurrection or not, I do not know; if so, they were most inadequate.

The history of the Armenians in Turkey has not merely consisted in exposure to great financial losses, but, at intervals of about 20 years, the Turks have risen against them in greater or lesser massacres. In the border towns, their daughters have been carried away; their flocks have been at the mercy of the Kurds; their houses have been taken by any powerful Sheikh who wished to do so, and they have never been allowed justice in the courts.

With this history behind them, it is not astonishing that they had no faith in the promises of fraternity from the party of Union and Progress, and their arms could easily be explained as being a means of protection against Turkish attack, should a massacre arise.

When Turkey entered this war, the Armenians were conscripted with the Turks, but a large number of the people had money with which to pay the £40 which would exempt them from military service. In X., out of the 5,000 soldiers that were sent off, 4,000 were Turks and 1,000 Armenians, while the proportion of Turks and Armenians in the population of the place is about even. It meant, of course, that many more Armenian men were left in the place than Turks. The Turks claimed that this was a menace to the safety of the city and also of the country. They began to oppress the Armenians by requisitioning from them large quantities of cloth, for clothing the Army, and food. Their stores were practically emptied of everything that could be used by the Army. Horses, wagons, donkeys were all taken, and no money was paid; a promissory paper was given, but no one valued it.

About eight months after the beginning of the war, a notice was served on all Armenians that they must give up their arms. The reason for this was stated to be that there were so many more Armenians than Turks left in the country and that the nation was known to be revolutionary. This political difficulty was being anticipated by the Government, which was in no condition to meet an inter-racial revolution.

At other times, just before a massacre, arms had been demanded from the Armenians, and so when this order was given great fear took possession of the people. The Government promised in public and private that no harm should come to the Armenians, and that this was only a war measure and a legitimate protection to the nation. The Armenians, however, gave up their arms very reluctantly and very slowly.

But suddenly one night a batch of about 20 men were arrested and sent, after a day or two’s imprisonment, to Z., the seat of the Vali for the whole province. This was immediately followed by the imprisonment of other leaders among the Armenians of the city. These men were tortured cruelly. Meanwhile what was going on in X. was being duplicated in all other cities. I saw some of the men who had been released, after they had been exhausted by torture. They had been thrown into a dungeon and kept without food, then beaten on their backs and the soles of their feet, and, when the flesh was sensitive, hot water had been poured on them and they had been beaten again—all this in order to make them reveal the whereabouts of the hidden arms. When they would not tell, they were made to kneel and their arms and feet were bound together; their mouths were filled with manure and all kinds of indignities were poured upon them. Some died under the process; many went mad. Eyes and nails were torn out. Some were let go, whether they had confessed anything that satisfied the Government or not, but many others disappeared entirely. This sort of inquisition went on until late in June.

Some bombs were found in a field, and it is claimed that they had been hidden in the houses in the city and then, in fear, transferred to this field, where the Government soon afterwards found them.

The Missionaries approached the Government, asking that a Committee from the different Armenian communities—Catholic, Gregorian and Protestant—might be formed, to collect arms. The Government gave permission for this, and promised again that no trouble should be given to the Armenians if they gave up their arms. The Government told the Committee how many rifles ought to be delivered from that city, and claimed to know who had most of them. Representatives of the Committee spoke to the people in the churches, and promised that if they would deliver their arms to them their names would not be given to the Government. The requisite number of rifles were soon collected, but, almost immediately, the order for deportation was given.

First the men were taken, usually from their homes at night, and imprisoned in empty barracks. About 400 men were taken the first time. The next morning their families were notified that they were to be deported, and that, if they wished, they could furnish them with food and clothing. So the women got together their supplies and carried them to their husbands, hoping that they were providing for their needs on a long journey. They sold everything they could lay their hands on, and provided money for the men. After a few days the men were sent away. They were sent at night, bound in fours, about 50 a night. The barracks were continually filled with recruits from the city. I do not know what became of these men, but I do know that, within six hours of the city, there are long ditches and deep wells filled with the bodies of Armenians. Their clothing was taken from them, as well as those supplies that the women had so pathetically prepared, and all their money.

Officers of the Government have told our friends that the official figure for the number of men killed at X. is over 1,300. People like to tell stories in Turkey, and it may be that this is not true.

On the 4th July the deportation order for the women came. It had been hoped that they would be allowed to remain. At the same time, it was publicly announced that people could save themselves if they would become Mohammedans. Large numbers, it is said 1,000 families, put in petitions to the Government. Only a small number of these petitions were accepted; the rest of the women and children were rapidly sent away.

Ox-carts were provided, and in some cases wagons, by the Government, but the people had to pay the carriage hire; if not, they had to walk. Some people could get donkeys, but, of course, the poor went on foot. It was difficult to get wagons and carts, and so the people were not all sent out at once. The Government scheduled the houses of those who were to go in each company, and gave them notice two or three days beforehand.

Sometimes they were taken in batches of from three to four hundred up to a monastery, about an hour from the city. Here they were imprisoned, and the Turkish men and women went to take away the women and girls who could be persuaded to become Turks and live in their harems. This was said to be the only way to save their lives, for they were all assured over and over again that, if they were not killed by the gendarmes or the wild villagers, they would die from the privations of the journey.

The missionaries in X. were allowed to bring to their premises those people who belonged to their institutions, the families of professors and servants, and many girls who had been students in the school. It was vacation, and, although a Summer school had been open to other boarders who could not get home because of the war, most of the city pupils who were in their own homes were allowed to enrol themselves as boarders.

The Government soon said that they must clear the premises. Some of the professors were arrested and imprisoned, but, by a money arrangement with the Government, their Armenian friends were able to secure them their release. It was soon learned that the Armenian people in the town were beginning to offer large sums of money for their protection and for permission to remain. These offers were accepted. The women gave their jewels to the wives of the Government officers, and obtained promises that they should not be sent away, although in every case they were obliged to become Moslems. The missionaries tried in every possible way to persuade the Government to allow their people, about 350 in all, to remain upon their premises. The American Embassy in Constantinople secured permission from the Ministries of War and the Interior for these people to be protected. But these authorisations were not recognised by the local Government, and, on the 10th August, the professors and servants were sent away on ox-carts—about 173 in all. The nurses in the hospital and the sickest of the patients, together with the people in the Girls’ School, were not taken at this time, but they were taken on the 12th August. The professors and servants travelled together as far as W., about a week’s journey with ox-carts, over the mountains. Here the men were bound together, shoulder to shoulder, in batches of four and marched away. Their wives sorrowfully went on alone. As these women reached the high mountain pass of AZ., the Circassians rushed upon them and robbed them of coats and bedding, as well as of all the gold they could lay their hands on.

These people and all those who went from X., and indeed from the whole Vilayet of Z., travelled east as far as the village of V. Here whatever means of conveyance they had travelled with was taken away and they were obliged to find some substitute. Wagoners placed exorbitant prices on their wagons. Ox-cart drivers quadrupled their prices, and many people were unable to find any way, except to go on foot. They were then driven eastward to Kirk Göz, a small village about six hours from Malatia, on the bank of the River Euphrates.

There again their conveyances were taken away, and they could not cross the river without paying large sums of money. Many, many died here, and it is said that many were thrown into the river. From this point they went south over the Taurus mountains, and word has been received from a few at Surudj and Aleppo....

(A portion of this document has been omitted here, and printed separately as Doc. 96)

went out from Constantinople to all the vilayets stopping further deportation of Armenians, but yet the deportation has been continuing ever since. Only four weeks before I left X., a company of young Armenian brides with their little boys, all of whom had become Mohammedans, were sent away. The order had come privately, not to the Governor but to the police, that women who had boys, no matter if they were babies in arms, should be deported with their children. Of that category there were perhaps three or four hundred in the city, and about 60 wagon-loads were chosen out at this time to go. No warning was given to the people beforehand; the ox-carts were simply driven to their doors in the morning. They had made no preparation, and the women, especially mothers-in-law (who have a good deal of influence in this country) were very angry. They went to the Governor and said: “See! We have given our pearl necklaces to your wife in order to save our lives; we paid one hundred liras to be saved; we have become Mohammedans. We have sold our souls and have given our money, and now you take our lives. We will not go.” One woman stood up on her cart and shouted all the Mohammedan prayers she had learned, to prove that she was a Mohammedan. It was a time of general frenzy. But they grabbed the women—bound them to the carts in many instances—and took them to the Armenian monastery. There they were imprisoned, but after much petitioning they finally got permission to send a representative from each family to the city to prepare food and get money for their journey. They sold their personal effects and in this way provided for themselves. This whole batch was killed in the mountains, on the other side of the plain from the city. Their birth certificates were found, and the burial had been so badly done that the bodies of little children were left on the ground, and the arms and legs of the corpses in the ditches protruded. Stories of this kind can, of course, be duplicated in all parts of the country, but I am only telling the things I can personally vouch for.

Many stories of wonderful bravery are told of the people who went away. In Samsoun, one of the most prominent Protestants of the place was not allowed to go with the crowd that was first sent out. The Governor came to him, and said to him: “You are a man, a real man; we do not want you to be lost. Now just say that you will be a Turk, and your life and that of your family will be saved.” The man replied: “But I cannot say I believe a thing of which I am not convinced. I do not believe the Mohammedan religion; you must educate me.” So they sent their teachers to him, and every few days would send in an official and ask him: “Now, are you not convinced?” Thus two weeks went by and finally the officials’ patience wore out, for the man continually said: “No, I cannot see what you see, and I cannot accept what I cannot understand.” So the ox-carts came to the door and took the family away. The wife was a delicate lady, and the two beautiful daughters well educated. They were offered homes in harems, but said: “No, we cannot deny our Lord. We will go with our father.”

From this city the whole Protestant community went together, led bravely by the Pastor. We heard from them near Shar-Kishla, but their men had all been taken away and the women robbed terribly.

In a mountain village there was a girl who made herself famous. Here, as everywhere else, the men were taken out at night and pitifully killed. Then the women and children were sent in a crowd, but a large number of young girls and brides were kept behind. This girl, who had been a pupil in the school at X., was sent before the Governor, the Judge and the Council together, and they said to her: “Your father is dead, your brothers are dead, and all your other relatives are gone, but we have kept you because we do not wish to make you suffer. Now just be a good Turkish girl, and you shall be married to a Turkish officer and be comfortable and happy.” It is said that she looked quietly into their faces and replied: “My father is not dead, my brothers are not dead; it is true you have killed them, but they live in Heaven. I shall live with them. I can never do this if I am unfaithful to my conscience. As for marrying, I have been taught that a woman must never marry a man unless she loves him. This is a part of our religion. How can I love a man who comes from a nation that has so recently killed my friends? I should neither be a good Christian girl nor a good Turkish girl if I did so. Do with me what you wish.” They sent her away, with the few other brave ones, into the hopeless land. Stories of this kind can also be duplicated.

The number of Armenians in Turkey was variously estimated at from one and a half millions to two and a half millions. Most people who know this country well, think that not over five hundred thousand are now left. This, however, may be too small an estimate, for there are thousands left in the various cities who have become Mohammedans. But this “turning” is recognised by both Christians and Mohammedans as a temporary thing. There are also many in hiding, especially in Greek villages and in the mountain districts. In previous years, after massacres, people have sprung up from most unexpected quarters, and I expect that this will be the case again. Those who were left, however, have been more thoroughly stripped of all worldly possessions than has ever been the case before. The best houses are immediately occupied by Turkish officials. Furniture has been taken to furnish officers’ houses and Government buildings. The disposal of the rest of the property varies in different places.

In X., the best furniture is being stored in the Gregorian churches, to be disposed of by the Commission appointed by the Government. However, almost everything that is valuable is gradually disappearing. The more common things are thrown into an empty square and auctioned or sold for a song.

X. is a city of weavers, and all the equipment for the looms was in the public square when I came away, and was ruined by rain and mud.

Whatever may be said about the revolutionary intentions of the Armenian people, a rebellious nation is not executed by its government, but is fought in fair fight, and those of us who have loved the Turks and believed that they would, in the end, work out a government that could be respected, grieve almost more over this great failure of theirs than over the suffering of their unfortunate subjects.

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Footnote 123:

The Constitution of 1908.—EDITOR.

89. NARRATIVE OF MISS AA., A FOREIGN TRAVELLER IN ASIATIC TURKEY, DESCRIBING A JOURNEY FROM X. TO Z., 10th AUGUST TO 6th SEPTEMBER, 1915; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

The delay of our party in Constantinople was hard to bear there, but the circumstances found on our arrival at X. were so distressing as to make the delay heart-breaking. All the Armenian college people—professors, teachers, servants and their families, with many from the hospital—had gone on the 10th August. We arrived on the evening of the 11th, and the next morning the Government officers had wagons driven on to the premises for the girls in the A.G.S. The order was peremptory. Of course the Kaimakam was visited, but no change in the order could be obtained. The Principal and I finally went and asked that Miss A. and I might be allowed to accompany the girls. This was refused, but finally a paper was given allowing us to precede or follow them by an hour.

There were at this time 74 Armenians in the school. The children in the deaf school with two caretakers were allowed to remain in their building, and the two old ladies, Miss AG. and Miss AH., who had been connected with the school during all its fifty years of life, were also allowed to stay. (There had been some 135 people in the school for several weeks, but they had many of them gone to other cities for safety, or, in the case of girls, had gone with their mothers into exile.)

The company that left the premises consisted of 62 people—7 trained nurses, 6 teachers, 3 dressmakers, 15 servants or members of their families, and 31 students. One of the only two trained teachers in the Ottoman Empire for teaching vocal speech to the deaf, was there. Perhaps the best trained native nurse in Anatolia was there. One of the few good music teachers in the country was there. The Armenian nurse who had gone in the winter to take care of the soldiers sick with typhus was there. The Presidents of the City Y.W.C.A. and of the student Y.W.C.A., the advisory officer, and four members of the cabinet were in the company. It was indeed too precious a group to be swept into the mälström of wretchedness that makes up the unending procession of the “exiled” in Anatolia. (It is said that 91,000 have passed south through Harpout, and that 250,000 is the number that must pass south over the mountains from Malatia.)

Just before Miss A. and I left the house, an urgent order came to the Principal, summoning him to the outskirts of the city. The Kaimakam wished him to be present when the official invitation was given to the girls to become Mohammedans. The invitation was politely given to each girl individually, and no force was used; but, an hour further on, another officer was sent to urge them again and to tell them of the inevitable death that awaited them in a very short time if they did not yield; then the wagon drivers began their work, telling continually of the horrors that lay before them. This was only the beginning of the pressure brought to bear upon them. The girls say that no day passed in which at least three formal representations were not made. Men of all types, even the most disgusting, were brought to them to urge them to “turn.” Whenever the officers presented the matter, they were always asked if they did not want to take “a new name.” This is entirely different from the former custom of the Turks when enforcing their religion. Formerly all have been asked simply to affirm their belief in one God. This “New Name” makes one shudder, when one connects it with the Revelation. The party was most splendidly protected physically on all their journey, for, in accordance with the promises, the greatest care had been taken in choosing the gendarmes and their sleeping places; but in spite of this care on the part of the Government, several nights were spent in their wagons, so vile were the threats made to them if they should descend. However, they reached AW.-han (one day’s journey beyond AX.) without any change in their number. There they were kept two nights and days, and every effort was made to terrorise them. One girl finally gave up the fight and consented to become the wife of an officer from Y. Here, also, the servants with their families and the older nurse, Miss K., were separated from the others and sent on via V., while the girls and teachers were sent on to Z. The girls say that the reason for this was the belief that the older ones in the party influenced the younger not to “turn.” However, the men were finally convinced of the uselessness of their efforts when one of the younger and prettiest girls spoke up for herself and said: “No one can mix in my decisions; I will not turn, and it is I myself that say it.”

The Principal decided to accompany Miss A. and me to Y. This was a great blessing to us. We passed the long line of fourteen wagons on the plain, and hastened on to find the Mutessarif Pasha if possible that night. This, however, proved impossible, and we were obliged to content ourselves with peering out of our han window at the line of wagons slowly winding through the streets of the city in the dusk to a camping place outside the town. The police of the city immediately called on us, and refused to accept our travelling papers, saying that they knew no Kaimakam’s orders—that they only recognised the police. We were not received by the Pasha early, and so were blocked; but we were given permission to go to the girls with food and money. The night had been a frightful one, and it seemed as if we could never let them go alone, but orders soon drove them out and they bravely started off. It was a heart-breaking experience to all of us. We hastened back to the city for permission to follow them. The Pasha was very stiff, and would not admit that the Government needed any assistance in looking after its children. We soon saw that it was useless to do anything but send a complimentary telegram to the Vali, asking him to keep our pupils under his personal protection.

We came back to X. and for four days worked to get more satisfactory travelling papers, but were finally obliged to start off with only a note from the police saying that no papers were needed for travelling within the bounds of the same vilayet, except in the case of suspects. In Y. our papers were again refused, but we had written to the Mutessarif the nicest note we could get translated into Turkish, asking his help in securing an opportunity for us to visit the Vali in Z. Twenty-four hours went by, and then we heard that a town meeting had been called and a negative decision made to our request. We decided that that word must never officially reach us. We started for the Pasha’s office, but he had gone to his harem. Here we followed him. We found his wife a real woman, with great sympathy for our desire to save our girls from the terrors of deportation, and the Pasha in his home was a transformed man. He promised to get us to the Vali if possible, and in due time this promise was made good. The police succeeded in putting enough obstacles in our way to keep us in the city another night, and so our people were six days ahead of us when we started from Y. The last annoyance was a peremptory command to sleep in a certain han. This we refused to do because of its inconvenience, and so we stayed in a han in the heart of the city, only a short distance from the recently burned district. We do not know why we were not wanted there, but the sickening odour that came into our windows till late into the night, the words which dropped from groups of men passing under our windows, and the five slowly fading fresh fire-spots on the ruins of the buildings, said to have been set on fire by the “turned” Armenians of the city, make me morally certain that a ghastly revenge had been taken that night.

Our guard was ready betimes in the morning. Our wagoner—a great Turkish thug—was on our side and ready to make time. The Pasha’s paper assured the greatest courtesy at every police station, and with rising hope we started off. But hope fades in the face of the great sight of these deported people, and we soon felt that in all human reason our request must be fruitless. We passed that first day two great processions of the exiles, all villagers from the mountains of BU. A few were riding in ox-carts, but the great majority were on foot. The dust was suffocating, and the poor things all carried great burdens—sometimes little children, often cradles with babies in them, always sacks of supplies. All we could do was to hold out a little money to them. We tried most often to give to the old or to young girls. They were often too much frightened or dazed to come to our carriage and take it, but our great husky driver would shout out: “Do not fear, these will help you.” Then they would come, but their fear only too plainly told of their experience. I must, however, witness to the fact that we did not see any sign of anything but patience and even kindness on the part of the gendarmes walking with these crowds. The general impression gotten everywhere is that orders are carried out, only orders, and that even the cruelties are well organised. Very few men were in the parties, but there were some. These people had been on the road more than three weeks.

We reached a lonely unfinished han three hours beyond AY. Here we found our first company of “turned” Armenians. They were from the town of L., and were going they knew not where. We met many after this; they are a little more comfortable than the Christians, and their men are with them, but they have been robbed like the others, and are full of uncertain fear of what may be coming to them, and also of remorse because their denial of what is really precious to them has brought them so little. We only stopped in AX. to send telegrams and get the story of that city. The men here, as everywhere else, had been rounded up first and sent off bound in fours, in gangs of from forty to fifty, in various directions from the city—to death, as all believe. In every city the citizens all believe this to be the fate of all men; all the gendarmes and arabadjis say it is, but all the officers deny it, saying that they send the men in this way because they have no gendarmes to handle the situation in any other way. They take all money and weapons (even razors) from them for the same reason. In AX. the women were also imprisoned and sent out without any preparation for the journey. The AX. people say that the AZ. Pass is the place where all the worst things happen, and we can well believe it. At BA. it looked ugly, and although it was quiet enough except for the coarse voices of the terrible-looking officers that were sitting about, you felt that things were wrong. A little bride and a slim young girl sidled up to our wagon to talk. In reply to our talk they told us that they were “busy taking care of the babies.” We asked what babies, and they said: “O, those the effendis stop here; the mothers nurse them and then go.” We asked if there were many, and were told that every house was full. We were watched too closely to make calls possible. Afterwards we found an officer ready to talk, who said: “We take them off after a while and kill them. What can we do? The mothers cannot take them, and the Government cannot take care of them for ever.” That night we stopped in another lonely place with a lot of new Turks in it. We were glad to help the sick, both among them and in the Circassian village near by, though I have no doubt the Circassians belonged to the bands who rob the exiles so frequently on this mountain. In the early morning, as we climbed the AZ. Pass, we passed a great camp of exiles. We decided that we needed to save the horses, so we walked up the steep ascent. We knew that our own girls were not far ahead, and wondered if our professors were here. They were not, but the company proved to be from BC., and the pastor and people were there. As we walked by, we saw ahead of us the girl teacher who has so self-sacrificingly worked there these many years. We had prepared packages of money to give away, and as she threw her arms about us with a brave quiver of her chin and a look of agony never to be forgotten, we hid upon her person a bag of money and told her to use it for all. There was no opportunity for talk except to learn that the men were still with the party. At the top of the mountain, when we changed our guard, I went into the kitchen to buy milk and talk. It was evident that we had not been allowed to come up the night before, although we had pleaded for it. Forty prisoners had been there, and they had been taken off to the tents just the other side of the mountain in the night and disposed of in some way. We wondered if it could have been our own professors and workers. We learned later that they (our people) had been separated from their wives at W. a few days before, and that the women had been robbed on this mountain only forty-eight hours before.

We reached AW.-han about nine that morning—only the second morning from Y.—and went immediately into the town for news, though we were apparently only interested in the famous rug-industry of the place. While I was discussing this interesting industry with a man, a woman told Miss A. to hurry to the deserted factory—that our girls were there and in danger. My man had already proposed to take us there. We found no rugs and no girls. The former had been confiscated by the Government, and the latter had gone only two hours before toward Z., five hours away. A friend turned up in the street, who told us that the girls had had a hard time here and that we had better go directly to the Kaimakam. This we did. He told us a made-up story, but said that the girls would lunch at BD.-han and that we could overtake them if we would hurry. We hurried! When we rounded the last turn of the road we saw the most beautiful sight I ever expect to see—every window full of dark heads and waving handkerchiefs. The Kaimakam had telephoned that they might wait for their teachers. He was the man who had tried so hard to get a girl, and to whom our small maiden had made her confession of faith! (When you are in the Government it is just as well not to let your left hand know what your right doeth.) After a few words with the girls, we hastened on to the city, reaching there about two hours before the girls. Just as we reached the city, we said to the gendarme with us: “Why should not these girls stay with us at the American School while we wait for the Vali’s decision?” He gave rather a non-committal reply, but we were scarcely settled with our friends when this man turned up, saying: “There has been a mistake; I got the permission for the girls to come here, but they have been taken to a Turkish boarding school.” A visit to the Turkish school soon straightened this out, though for a while we feared our misunderstanding would be a fatal one for our cause. The Vali’s sister is greatly interested in this school, which has been established for Armenian girls left in villages whose adult inhabitants had been sent on “sefkyat.” The authorities thought our girls a new relay, and were a little disgusted that it was not so. One of the humorous experiences of the journey occurred before the girls were allowed to leave. In the dim light they were lined up to meet the commissioner of education, who wished to say a few words to them. They dressed like Turkish girls on the journey in white sheets, and were a weird sight in the long hall; but when the commissioner told them that they had no need to leave that fine place and go with foreigners, and asked them if they would not rather change their names and stay there, there came so emphatic a “Khyar, Effendim” from the long line, that they were immediately proved to be very lively ghosts. The Vali was away from the city attending to a Kurdish revolution in the villages, and this affair gave a very providential opportunity for a call on his sister, to apologise for the seeming lack of appreciation of her hospitality on the part of our students. She was stiff and angry, but we ended the best of friends, I saying that I wished she and all the world were Christian, and she avowing that she wished me a Mohammedan, and each of us declaring that we were going to use our best efforts to bring about our desires.

As soon as the Vali returned, we called, and after a very pleasant talk on every subject but the one in hand, we handed him our formal petition for the return of the girls. He immediately granted it, inviting us not to hurry away, but to enjoy the hospitality of his city as long as possible. We concluded that it was better not to hasten, for we wanted an opportunity to present another petition for our professors, and to talk to him about relief for the suffering in his country. The second call was not so pleasant as the first, for the idea of his country needing any help from foreign nations under any circumstances was an absurdity. We told him that no country could live to itself in this age of reciprocity, and that in time of great trouble, whether caused by nature or by war, friendship was shown as much by accepting help as by giving it; that our country could only in these sad days offer to help the warring nations, and that it was doing it indiscriminately. He warmed a little, but said that at present there was no need and that he had not such matters in charge.

We only left our petition for the return of our other friends, and took leave after he had assured us that our journey should be facilitated in every way. This was done. He himself was on the telephone at the AZ. Pass to hear from our own lips the assurance that we were passing that dangerous place in comfort. We came in comfort, and this fact only emphasised the suffering of those we met always going in the other direction. Our driver one day voiced the thought of our hearts: “Who will give the Arzu Hal for these?” The road all along the way was marked by dead and decaying animals, and though we did not personally see human bodies, we were told of their presence under bridges and in ravines, and frequent groups of vultures gave silent witness. There were many feeble and dying in the processions we met, for the weather was very hot. In Y. we called on the Pasha and his family and the gendarmerie chief, and were very politely received and earnestly congratulated. But in the early morning, when Miss A. and I went up town to get some necessary supplies for the journey, six men hung on gallows in the streets and one old man was saying: “Why, that is my son!” So near are joy and agony in the world, and especially in this land. They were deserters from the Army.

Our findings, in regard to what we have witnessed, are as follows:—

I. The Armenians have been deported practically universally from these six vilayets. Many of them have been killed by order of the Government and many have died by the way, but many also are enduring months of travel, and are approaching the borders of the great Arabian desert, where help must be gotten to them. A large plan of relief is absolutely necessary. It must emanate from the capital and there receive authority.

II. Orders given from Constantinople are often made void by other private orders; so anything that is promised must be written, and put in the hands of the people authorised to carry it out in co-operation with the Government. Only official seals will be recognised.

III. The orders about Protestants are only partially acknowledged by a few authorities, and in most cases all Protestants have either gone into exile or have been terrorized into becoming Mohammedans. Some order providing for relief for them, either where they are this winter or after they return to their plundered homes, is necessary if any real help is to be given them.

IV. Permission for the recantation of the recently “turned” Protestants would be of the greatest help to the country, for their condition is most pitiable. They are neither one thing nor the other, and are afraid to engage in any real business, for all they possessed is soon required of them in bribes by different officers.

V. Bribe-taking has been enormous in some places, notably in X.; many have paid 2,000 liras to save their lives and then been sent into exile practically without a para.

VI. Forcible Mohammedanizing has been universal, in the assurance that death on the road is the only available alternative. Many, for the sake of trying to save wife and children a little while, have so changed their faith. The best of the Turks, however, only emphasise the national side of this change and not the religious.

VII. The Turkish houses are full of Christian children, girls and women. They are usually early registered Mohammedans and an Imam comes and teaches them some of the prayers. After a while their “nufus” teskeriés are called for and a Turkish one given in their place, and so their nationality is lost.

VIII.—Omitted by the Editor.

IX. What has become of the men is a profound mystery, but I am increasingly certain that the large majority of them have been killed. The soldiers are still most of them alive, I believe, though all say that in the end they will also be killed. I talked with one who had managed to crawl to the Z. hospital wounded. He was one of ten men who had escaped, when all the rest of their company of 200 had been shot by the gendarmes in a defile of the mountains.

90. X.: REPORT FROM MR. AL., A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT L., IN ASIATIC TURKEY, DATED 26th AUGUST, 1915; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

On the 14th instant I started again for X., and I returned from there on the 24th.

On the 10th instant, that is, immediately after my departure, the Turkish Government carried away, in 31 ox-carts, part of the Armenians of the College and the Hospital.

These gentlemen had been instructed by me not to allow these people to start voluntarily, and as you will see stated in the Principal’s letter, they were taken by force. Besides, 63 persons were taken from the Girls’ School.

As stated in the Principal’s letter, the lawyer of the College said that these people could perhaps be released if a sum of two or three hundred pounds (Turkish) were given to the Kaimakam and the Gendarmerie Commander. But as I could not approve such proceedings on the part of the College, I sent you a telegram on the 13th instant, reporting on the actions of the authorities at X.

It seems that the Kaimakam, the Gendarmerie Commander and the Beledié-Reis could not agree on the sharing of the sum, so that the Kaimakam dared not accept the money from the Americans, and meanwhile the girls were sent away.

The conversion of these girls to Islam was attempted, but as they refused to change their religion, they were sent towards Y. Miss AA., Miss A., and the Principal went with them to Y. There they were not allowed to enter the city, and had to camp in the open air.

The Americans were forbidden by the Mutessarif to go further than Y., on the pretext that the vessikas which they had taken at X. were without value. They came back to X. I told them that they could have asked the Kaimakam for a vessika for Z., stating that they had to work for the American Mission at that place. On the 16th instant this was tried, but the Kaimakam did not believe the reason given, and he said that only the Mutessarif of Y. could decide about that departure. Miss AA. and Miss A. then started again for Y., on the 16th instant.

At Y. they could not at first manage to see the Mutessarif, so they called at his harem, where he came later. They succeeded in obtaining from him the promise that he would ask the Vali of Z. for that permission. Thus was the journey finally permitted.

Miss AA. and Miss A. will arrive at Z. at the same time as the 63 girls, and they will try to obtain from the Vali permission to accompany them.

These girls are accompanied by a servant from the College, and inform telegraphically of their arrival in each place.

I doubt whether Miss AA. and Miss A. will ever succeed in obtaining that permission from the Vali, because these girls are all from 12 to 18 years old, and they will assuredly be distributed among the Turkish families of Z., Malatia, etc.

Only 52 persons are left in the College and the Hospital. I gave a list of their names to the Kaimakam, requesting him to deliver them vessikas so that they may not be troubled. The Kaimakam sent that list to the Vali of Z., and he told me before I left that these people would in any case be allowed to stay. I am convinced, however, that the contrary will happen, because this is a European institution, and life is made very hard for these people. They were all ready to be sent away on the 18th or 19th instant, but my presence prevented that action. I telegraphed requesting permission for the remaining Armenians to keep their positions, because otherwise Dr. BB. would be obliged to close the hospital, because he cannot do without an apothecary or without nurses.

My opinion is that, owing to the Government’s proceedings, no foreign mission will now be able to carry on its work in Turkey, because they cannot do without the Christian element....

There still remain in X. a few more Armenians who are hiding themselves, and also those who have embraced Islam, but these will assuredly be deported after they have taken all that they possess.

I called on the Kaimakam the last day, and he was very kind to me. I went also to M. I know from a reliable source that nothing disagreeable happened to the Armenians from L. on the way to Y. The Mutessarif was very kind, and gave the gendarmes strict instructions, threatening them with severe punishment in case the Armenians were ill-treated. He even asked the Commander of Gendarmerie, Latif Bey, to accompany them to BH. The latter was very kind to the Armenians, and these are very grateful both to him and to the Mutessarif.

At Y., the women were separated from the men, and the latter were bound in groups of five and carried away at night, no one knows where.

Near Y. there is a well which must contain from fifty to sixty corpses; heaps of torn clothes, fezes and papers were found near there. Part of these papers were gathered up. Not far from Y. there must also be a common grave for about 400 corpses.

A person of standing[124], who has been travelling in the interior, gave me confidentially the following details on the subject:

(1) Samsoun, Amasia and Marsovan people—all reached Amasia. Then all the men were taken, bound, and some of them killed, between Amasia, Tokat and Tourchal. All those who reached Tokat were directed towards Tchiftlik or Gishgisha and murdered. The women and children were taken in ox-carts to Sharkishla; then they were sent to Malatia, and finally thrown into the Kirk Göz or Euphrates.

(2) Tokat.—The same thing as above, with the difference that all pretty women and all children were taken off to Turkish houses.

(3) Erbaa, Niksar, Messoudia.—The men were bound during the night, and then part of them were thrown into the river Kelkid. The others were murdered near Tokat. The women and children were deported via Sharkishla and Malatia—same fate as in No. 1.

(4) Sharkishla, Gemerek, Azizia, Tchoroum, Derenda—all sent on foot to Malatia, same fate.

(5) Sivas, Divrik, Kangal—in ox-carts to Kangal, then all on foot to Malatia, men murdered en route, same fate.

(6) Egin, Arabkir, Keban, Harpout, Malatia—same fate.

(7) Karahissar, Sou-Shehr, Zara, Tchavik—all murdered.

(8) Erzindjan, Kamakh—part murdered, the rest thrown into the Euphrates.

Bands of Kurds from Dersim are at work in Malatia. All Armenians have been killed, according to my informant. I believe that all the men have been killed, but that the women and children have been distributed among the Turkish families of the interior. Not one Armenian is to be seen.

I wanted very much to go to M. and Y., so as to see myself what was happening, but the Kaimakam had his eye on me. I do not know that one can believe everything one is told, and it seems rather curious that none of my friends from the interior have reported these things to me.

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Footnote 124:

Name given in the original—Mr. BZ.

91. X. (?): NARRATIVE OF A FOREIGN RESIDENT OF GERMAN NATIONALITY[125]; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

I was called to a house one day where I saw a sheet which originated from the prison, and which was being sent to the wash. This sheet was covered with blood, and running in long streams. I was also shown clothes which were drenched and exceedingly dirty. It was a puzzle to me what they could possibly have done to the prisoners, but I got to the bottom of the matter by the help of two very reliable persons who witnessed part of it themselves.

The prisoner is put in a room (just as was done in the time of the Romans), and gendarmes standing in twos at both sides and two at the end of the room administer bastinadoes, each in their turn, as long as they have enough force in them. In Roman times forty strokes were administered at the very most; in this place, however, 200, 300, 500, even 800 strokes are administered. The foot swells up and then bursts open, owing to the number of the blows, and thus the blood spurts out. The prisoner is then carried back into prison and brought to bed by the rest of the prisoners—this explains the bloody sheet. The prisoners who become unconscious after these blows are revived by having cold water thrown on their heads, and that accounts for the wet and dirty clothes. On the next day, or, more exactly, during the night, as all ill-treatments are carried on at night in ——, as well as in ——, the whole bastinadoing is repeated again, in spite of the swollen feet and the wounds. I was then in ——, but in that prison there were also no less than thirty prisoners, who all had their feet in such a state that they began to burn, and had to be amputated, or had actually already been taken off. Equally revolting tortures have been inflicted in ——, and also by the cruel Mutessarif in ——. A young man was beaten to death within the space of five minutes.

Apart from the bastinadoing, other methods were employed as well, such as putting hot irons on the chest. A smith, who was suspected of having forged the shells of the bombs, was let go only after his toes had been burned off with sulphur (called kezab). I have seen the wounds.

Four weeks ago we received news that the Kaimakam of —— had had ten to eighteen people shot in a district between —— and ——. Shortly after this had happened, an order was promulgated with respect to the Christians of ——, in which they were all commanded to leave the place within three-quarters of an hour. Among them were several women who gave birth to children on the way, and threw them, in their desperation, into the water. Many men were recalled, and it is impossible to say how many were secretly murdered, or how many will still be butchered.

I wish to state that the inhabitants of —— are so terribly ignorant that I really never saw the like, and I therefore feel convinced that not one single person had ever dreamt of opposing the authorities. Neither from the Turks nor from the Christians have I ever heard that one of these people had ever rebelled during the four months in question, and it is the Kaimakam alone who says so in order to excuse his deeds. And yet the Kaimakam always declares: “No one dares oppose me.” When I ventured to protest to the Kaimakam in all friendliness against the bloody sheets, he replied as follows: “If the law and the Sultan were to forbid it, I would carry out these measures in spite of everything, and do as I please.”

In ——, three weeks ago, when I was engaged in getting ready to go off, I noticed two gendarmes riding in the direction of the mountains with an inhabitant of —— who had been expelled and then recalled. They (the gendarmes) returned without the man and declared, as their excuse, that the man had escaped, which is, of course, out of the question, as the man’s feet were completely swollen and he was on a mule, while the gendarmes were on horseback.

The German consul at Aleppo estimates the number of individuals deported to be 30,000. Five thousand people were deported to the unhealthy spot of Sultania, in the Konia district. The Government served out some bread during the first few days. When the bread was finished and they received no more, the misery was heart-rending. According to Mr. ——, ——, the rich were also deported to Sultania, and shared their bread with the poor as long as their money lasted, which was not very long, of course. Mr. —— begged the Vali for permission to supply the people with bread, but he replied that the Government attended to this, and that the people did not want any.

92. X.: LETTER, DATED NEW YORK CITY, 30th DECEMBER, 1915, FROM PROFESSOR QQ., OF THE COLLEGE AT X., TO AN ARMENIAN PROFESSOR RESIDENT BEYOND THE OTTOMAN FRONTIER.

I received your letter only yesterday. I am very glad you were in London and not in Turkey. They have been terrible days, filled with terrible events. The experiences I have had during the last six to eight months are terrible indeed. Not that I had much to suffer in person, but I suffered by witnessing the sufferings of others.

I am sending you some printed material that may interest you.

The short of it is that all the Armenians of X. have been “deported” (sefk oloundou)—the official word. The destination was Mosul, Der-el-Zor—sometimes Bagdad was mentioned. The very first to be arrested were twenty-five members of the Executive of Hunchak[126].... They were sent to Z. They all either died of typhus or were put to death, and it was the same with AJ. and AK. and some fifty others—all sent to Z. and finished off there. Then all the men found in the streets were arrested; many were taken out of their beds at night. These were professedly sent to Y. It is certain that they were all killed at a distance of three to four hours from X., on the W. road. I cannot give you a list; here are some of the names[127] ...; the number was officially stated as 1,215.

Then they sent away the women and children, including some old men like AW. Before the ox-carts left the town, some girls were picked out and sent to harems—M.’s daughter, a pretty girl just graduated in June; N.’s daughter, etc., etc. The women were distributed to the villagers; many would perish on the way, and perhaps some might reach Syria.

Dr. LZ., of Adana, told me the other day that many from U., T. and X. had passed through Adana. Some of the women of X. came to his home. Unfortunately he could not remember the name of anyone. Some were graduates of the American schools. They said that the men had been killed on the way; many had died of hunger, disease or exposure. They had no money. It took them three months to go from X. to Adana. They were to go on to Aleppo—then Mosul!

When they were all imprisoned at X., then the wealthy and the wise began to consult together and find means of escape. First of all, Mr. O. declared in favour of conversion to Mohammedanism as the only way of salvation. He influenced many and persuaded them to follow him. It was not so easy to persuade the officials. P., Mr. Q.’s man, our graduate, said to me: “We have lost all—our religion and our money too (Hem dinimizden oldouk, hemdé paramizdan).’ He said that everyone gave large, very large sums, hundreds of pounds. Someone is said to have given £2,000. All this went into the pocket of the Kaimakam and the Commandant of the gendarmes. These two men had in their hands the people’s lives, property and everything else. Many applied to become Mohammedans, but were not accepted. I saw the Kaimakam, Kadi, Mufti, etc., all sitting and examining whole piles of petitions. Perhaps some thirty to forty from among them were accepted, to mention a few names[128] ... all with their families.

X. had more converts than other places. O. told me that it was through his influence that this success was obtained. He was on good terms with the Kaimakam. If one wanted to stay in Turkey, he told me, one had to become a Moslem. He approved my decision to leave the place. A prominent official said to B.: “In these parts you will hear no more ‘Kal’ Iméra’ or ‘Pari Louis.’”[129]

Your brothers, I am sorry to say, are among those who were sent away. What happened to them, who knows? I suppose there is no hope for them, especially considering the name they bear. K. was intimate with the Kaimakam and the Commandant, as their wives had been in the Hospital; but when they found out that she was a relative of yours, they began to behave differently. She was sent away with the girls of the girls’ school; Miss A. went with them as far as Z.; they were 63 in all; 23 have been sent on, chiefly servants; 40 girls came back to X., and are now in the girls’ school, J.’s daughter among them. Before the girls were taken, the Kaimakam asked each one, in the presence of the Principal of the College, whether they wanted to become Mohammedans and stay, or go. They all replied that they would go. Only Miss H. became a Mohammedan, and went to live with G. Professors E. and FF. had been arrested with other Armenians, but in the name of all the teachers some £250-£300 were presented to the officials, and so they were let free—the officials said they were to go with the last batch.

Meanwhile, word was sent to Constantinople, and Ambassador Morgenthau secured a promise from Talaat that the College people would not be touched. But the Kaimakam declared to the Principal that no such order had reached X.

The Principal refused to deliver up anyone from the College premises; but the gendarmes came and broke down the big gate, and any other door that was barred, and took away all the Armenians—FF., GG., J., HH., and JJ. According to the testimony of the gendarmes, they all marched with their families for three or four hours, and then the men were separated and killed, while the women were sent on. Not a word came from any one of them.

When the girls were being sent on, Miss AA. managed to get promises for two of the inmates, Miss AG. and Miss AH., to stay on at the school, so they stayed. But the promise said “For a time.” AX. and AY., the cook and steward of the College, were also allowed to remain, and four nurses were left in the hospital. All the rest—servants, nurses and patients—were taken. The two druggists of the hospital, AZ. and AI., had to become Mohammedans, and are still working with Dr. BB. All the shops and houses were seized by the Government—in one word, confiscated.

The priests were among the first to be sent off. A Turk described how KK. was killed. They stripped him of all his clothes, excepting his underclothing. With his hands bound behind his back, he knelt, with his son beside him, and they finished him off with axes, while he was praying. The same description was given of the execution of LL.—how they took off his head by hacking down into his shoulders with axes and carving the head out like a bust.

The missionaries had written on behalf of Mrs. MM. to Constantinople, so it was through Mr. Morgenthau that special orders were sent for her. After the troubles began, she stayed in the Hospital. I left X. on the 2nd August. I was detained eighteen days in the town of S., because I came from X. and was a Protestant. The difficulty was in the word “Protestant,” which was taken as equivalent to Armenian. How could there be a Protestant of my nationality? At last the Vali was persuaded that there could be other than Armenian Protestants, and permitted me to go to Constantinople. I lost thirteen days in Constantinople over the same point. At last I got my papers through the American Ambassador, or rather Consul—perhaps both. It is a long story; some day I might relate it in full. Many others of my nationality were in Constantinople trying to get passports, but they did not succeed. I am very glad I got away from Turkey....

I left everything I had in X. It was no use attempting to sell the things, neither could we take them with us. But I do not regret that—even should they be lost for good—when I stop to think of what happened to my friends and colleagues. I cannot believe that it is real. How glad I am that I escaped from that hellish scene! My only fear now is about my people—relations and friends in S. and elsewhere. I am afraid that they will persecute my nationality also.

The Armenian Church <at X.> was sealed up and guarded by soldiers. The Protestant Church was just finished and ready to be used. We might not enter it for prayer, not even once. Someone said that O. had promised to bear the expense of adding the minarets to it. Of course, he may have said it to save his own position....

All the Catholics and Gregorians of S. were carried off. By that time I was in Constantinople. The men, it is said, were killed; of the women, those that had become Moslems were allowed to stay, the rest were sent on to Mesopotamia. Mosul is their ultimate destination.

You will find hardly an Armenian left in Trebizond, Ordou, Samsoun, or the districts of Marsovan, Köprü, Amasia, Tokat, Sivas, Harpout—excepting just a few who became Moslems. The vilayets of Harpout and Sivas, it seems, had the worst treatment, but I cannot say—it was bad everywhere. Again, the Protestants were left alone at S. and R.; they were likewise spared in the towns of Kaisaria and Talas, but not in the surrounding villages....

93. X.: NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY FROM X. TO CONSTANTINOPLE, BY PROFESSOR QQ. OF THE COLLEGE AT X.; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

Under the pretext of transportation for political reasons, the Young Turks are carrying out a well-planned, systematic process of extermination. Beginning in April, they imprisoned the leaders and many other prominent people in X. In order to exact confession they used all sorts of torture, only to be paralleled in the records of Mediævalism and the Inquisition. I saw people unable to walk brought on donkeys to Dr. BB. for treatment of their wounds and sores that they got from torturing and beating. GG., a strong young man, an employee of the College, was beaten so terribly that he was unable to walk for weeks. I saw him moaning in bed.[130]

I heard from the lips of Professors FF. and E., as well as from many others, our graduates, etc., of the terrible condition of those imprisoned in a subterranean place under the barrack in X. People were literally packed there—the air suffocating. Happily they were kept there only for a short time; but—unhappily—they were taken away from there in groups and put to death, at a distance of three or four hours from X. This was openly confessed by the Turks to many Greeks. I heard it from a Greek gendarme who was compelled to take part in the killing. Axes were used for killing them. The condemned were stripped of all but their underclothing and led to the brink of a great ditch. There they knelt with their hands bound behind their backs, and were despatched by axe-blows on the head—as the scene was described by an eye-witness to Mr. NN., the representative of the Greek bishop in X. The Armenian priests were killed likewise. One of them, KK., was killed in the attitude of prayer—praying with his son beside him.

Women, children and old men were carried away on ox-carts. The sight was tragic[131]. Women of good family were dressed like peasants and driven away on ox-carts, accompanied by wild, savage-looking gendarmes and Turkish drivers. On one cart I saw the aged mother, wife, sister and two-year-old daughter of Mr. OO., one of our teachers[132]. As they passed by our door they bade us good-bye. The old mother, waving her hand upward, said to us, “Pray for us,” and so they went on. The little child was smiling. On one cart there was a woman expecting childbirth. Miss K., a nurse in the Hospital, saw her as she was driven past the Hospital windows. She begged the gendarmes to let her stay in the Hospital until she was delivered, and they let her. She was delivered within a few days. Others, however, were not so fortunate and were carried mercilessly along.

I left X. on the 3rd August, accompanied by Pastor CC. with his wife and niece[133]; Mr. DD. of our College, with his wife, mother and daughter; and Mrs. MM. with her four daughters. The first family travelled by the permission—officially given—of the authorities at X. The other two had a special permit from the Minister of War, Enver Pasha. Mr. DD. was an American subject.

Two days short of S., near the village RR., we were stopped by a gendarme. Standing near him were several men with axes in their hands. He asked me whether there were any Armenians in our company. He said all Armenians had to go back—anyone of my own nationality could go on. I tried to reason with him and pressed the point that they travelled by the special order of Enver Pasha. He replied that “he could not read, so he had to carry out the orders given him.” In a few minutes 56 men came up, on horseback and armed. One of them could read. They repeated the same order—“All Armenians back.”

All the arabadjis—Turks, all of them—pleaded hard with the man[134]. They all said: “These are all others and not Armenians. They had already finished off the Armenians in X. before we started.” There was only one Armenian family in the group, they said, and they had the order of Enver Pasha. The document was presented to the leader, EE. He read it aloud. Then I told him that I was from S., and that I had a friend, a medical doctor, in military service in S. I described him and gave his name to the leader. It so happened that he knew my friend and regarded him with much esteem, so when he heard this he laughed and shook hands with me, and begged me to take his compliments to my friend, adding: “Excuse us, this gendarme made a mistake in stopping you. Go on.” The whole party went on. We were told afterwards that this leader was a well-known criminal robber, and that the whole group were chettis—bandits—armed by the order of the Government and let loose to harry the Armenians. During this scene of anxiety, Mr. CC. and Mr. DD. were perspiring the cold sweat of agony. Mrs. MM. was in a tremor.

In one carriage there were a son and a daughter of Mr. AB., pastor in the city of BO.

The very day that we reached S., Friday, the Armenians of the place were being arrested. Their documentary permits for travel were taken from our companions and never returned to them. They were told by the Police that they had inquired from Constantinople about them and were awaiting orders. Mr. DD. and Mr. CC. called on the Chief (Mudir) of the Police in S., and had interviews, but to no effect. The Mudir questioned DD. on his citizenship; how was it possible for a man born in Turkey to become an American subject? Three days after our arrival, CC.and DD. were taken away at night from the hotel, and sent off with other leading Armenians of S. in carriages—hands tied. They were sent along the road towards TT. and T. Carriages were hired for a distance of four hours, as far as a lake four hours’ journey from S. The driver who took our friends, a man from X. who had driven Mrs. MM. to S., told me that “those men were finished off on the way”; he was not allowed to see the dead,

but the zaptieh told him. He was sure that all those sent off were robbed on the way!

Peasants told my friend—a medical man in the military hospital at S.—that places near their villages, close to the scene of our incident with the chettis, were all blood-stained.

The drivers said they wished they had never seen the like of what they saw. One Albanian in S. boasted in the café of how he had killed 50 Armenians.

The railway stations between S. and Isnik were full of women, children and men—Armenians driven from their homes and waiting for an opportunity to enter the train. They were conveyed in goods trains—packed in like sheep. It was a pitiful, heart-breaking sight.

It seems that there was a prohibition against speaking to them. Near Isnik, in one of the wagons, I saw AC., a man from X. employed in the school at AD. I ventured to call his name as our train passed by, but could not attract his attention. Immediately the Turk near me asked me whether I was an Armenian. There was no Armenian in our train.

Turkish soldiers from T. and its villages told me at VV., on our way to S., that all the villages in their region were emptied—all the men killed. I asked them about the women; “God alone knows,” was their reply.

I saw a carriage (araba) loaded with spades, shovels, etc., in front of the police headquarters in S. They were all covered up, but one could distinguish then what they were. Then a policeman started to ride off. During the loading, people were not allowed to look on. As I was passing by at that moment, and dared to glance in that direction, I was given a terrible blow by the police officer.

The Kaimakam and the commandant of the gendarmes at X. told me repeatedly that they were only tools; they had to carry out the orders given them. No Armenian is to be left. Old or young, blind or lame, or disabled—all had to go away, without any exception being granted.[135]

The Vali of S. was dismissed from office for refusing to carry out the orders. A new Vali, an inexperienced young man, was sent to take his place, who carried out the order strictly and harshly.

The Roman Catholic Armenians of S.—some 3,000 families—were all deported.

Mrs. CC., Mrs. DD. and Mrs. MM. were still in S., residing in the Protestant church building, when I left S. on the 26th August. They tried to see the Vali, but were not allowed, and their papers and permits were not given back to them. Mrs. MM. pleaded hard with my wife that we should take with us at least one of her daughters. There were similar petitions from many others, but it was impossible to do anything. We ourselves were under suspicion and liable to suffer, and it is a wonder how we escaped. It is due to the grace of God and to the kindly help of the American Embassy and Consulate in Constantinople.

94. X.: NARRATIVE OF MISS CC., COMMUNICATED BY HER TO A SWISS GENTLEMAN AT GENEVA DURING HER PASSAGE THROUGH SWITZERLAND IN DECEMBER. 1915.

It was on the 29th April that the Turkish Government began to arrest the leading Armenians at X.

Mr. OO., Professor of Armenian, was sent to Z. with sixteen other Professors; they suffered fiendish atrocities. Their hair was plucked out by the roots; they were burned with red hot irons; they were sprinkled with boiling water; they were flogged daily; some of them died in prison. Mr. OO. himself had his eyes gouged out, and was then hanged.

At X., the arrests continued, and the Armenians were flogged to make them confess to pretended revolutionary preparations. The surrender of a definite number of rifles were demanded of them; some of them bought rifles from the Turks in order to be able to deliver them up to the Government. They were tortured to make them bring in their arms[136].

The Turkish villagers were paid to flog the Armenians, because the Turkish townspeople of X. might possibly have taken pity on them.

PP., the college blacksmith, was so terribly beaten that a month later he was still unable to walk. Another was shod with horse-shoes. At Y., Mr. AD. (brother-in-law of the pastor AE., who suffered martyrdom at Sivas twenty-one years ago) had his finger-nails torn out for refusing to accept Islam. “How,” he had answered, “can I abandon the Christ whom I have preached for twenty years?”

The search for rifles lasted several weeks. In the Armenian cemetery the Turks found several bombs, buried there since 1908 and now absolutely rusty and unusable.

By the end of June, all the men were in the prisons, barracks or cellars. The women, who went to visit their husbands and bring them clothes and food, were beaten and driven off by the gendarmes.

After several days’ imprisonment, those who had promised to embrace Islam were released, as well as those who had paid very large sums of money. Mr. AF., a colporteur, had been willing to embrace Islam, but his wife refused to recognise his apostasy and declared that she would go into exile with the rest of the people, so he went with his wife and was killed.

The remainder were sent in batches out of the town and killed on the road. The Turks told their Armenian friends what was happening, and promised them the same fate.

No sooner were all the men disposed of, than they began to deport the women and children and even the sick; the ox-carts kept passing day and night. A Turk, the landlord of our house, told us that he had watched this procession, covered with dust and tortured by the heat and lack of water, and that he had said to himself that they would all be dead before they reached their destination. A woman who got back to X. by accepting conversion, after being on the road about ten days, gave an account of their heart-rending condition. Even mothers abandoned their children or handed them over to the Kurds; the Kurds for that matter took them by force and violated the girls, some of whom were carried off for their harems. After several days’ journey, the carts turned back and the exiles had to proceed on foot.

Those connected with the American college gave the Turkish officers large sums to procure their exemption, but this brought them nothing but a postponement of their cruel fate. Meanwhile, the efforts of the American Embassy obtained for Professor DD. permission to go to Constantinople with his wife and eight-months-old baby, as well as his old mother, and my own family was permitted to leave for Smyrna. After several days travelling by carriage, we all arrived at S. There my father and mother were arrested, as well as Professor DD.

Everything we could do to get them released was in vain. It was impossible to learn anything about their fate. The Mudir said: “They have reached their destination safe and sound.”[137]

Several days later all Armenians, with the exception of a few Protestant ladies, were cleared out of S.

Later, some of the missionaries from X. passed through S. and found us there in the desperate state we were in. They told the American Embassy as soon as they reached Constantinople, and that is how we obtained permission to proceed to Constantinople.

Here it took us three months to obtain a passport for America.

At X. several families made up their minds to take poison. Mr. GG. was imprisoned. He apostatized and returned home, and his wife fainted at the sight of him. Professor B. accepted Islam, and became head of the printing works. F., E., and the photographer D. have all three apostatized to Islam. There was no revolutionary movement. Frightful atrocities occurred. There was a dark underground cellar into which the Armenians were crowded, one on the top of the other. One night one of them cried out in his sleep: “Escape,” and the other prisoners began to shout as well. Then the guards were given the order to fire into the living mass, but they showed some human feeling and fired against the wall.

-----

Footnote 125:

Name withheld. It is possible that the scene of the events described by this witness may be, not X., but Cilicia.—EDITOR.

Footnote 126:

Six of the names here follow in the original: M., OO., AN., AO., AP., AQ., AR.

Footnote 127:

Four names here follow in the original: AS., AT., AU., AV.

Footnote 128:

Seventeen names here follow in the original: C., BC., O., B., D., BD., G., BE., BF., AN., BG., BH., BI., BJ., P., BK., BL.

Footnote 129:

Greek and Armenian, respectively, for “Good morning.”—EDITOR.

Footnote 130:

The treatment of this victim is described in more detail in a narrative subsequently published by the author of the present document:

“Some died as a result of torture. I saw Garabed GG., who, after having been whipped and beaten a whole day and night, at intervals of two hours, was moaning in his bed with excruciating pain. He was confined to bed for weeks. He related to me how one gendarme had sat on his mouth, that he might not scream, while two others had held up and bastinadoed his feet, which were bound with ropes attached to a strong rod. Sometimes they would beat him on any part of his body, indiscriminately. The poor fellow, a strong, brave young man, the leader of the college firemen, who, in the presence of all the leading Turkish officials, had extinguished some time ago a big fire in the town, was in despair and longed to die. His body was all blue as a result of the beating.”

Footnote 131:

Further details in the narrative subsequently published:

“I visited a great many Armenian families while they were preparing for this Babylonian captivity. I could not stand the sight, neither could I find any words of comfort for them. The scene varied from house to house, but everywhere there was the same feeling of suspense, dread and despair. In some houses one saw a feeling of true resignation and heroism. There was a retired pastor, sixty-eight years old. He did not pack anything in the house, but left it as it was. Taking his staff in his hand, he said: ‘I am ready to go wherever they send me. The Lord is my guide!’”

Footnote 132:

The fate of Mr. OO. himself is recorded in the narrative subsequently published:

“Mr. OO. was put to death at Z. with excruciating tortures—his eyes being gouged out, and red-hot irons driven under his nails.”

Footnote 133:

Daughter (?). See Doc 94.—EDITOR.

Footnote 134:

Further instances of Turkish kindness are recorded by the writer in his subsequently published narrative:

“The poor Armenians sold their few possessions, but the transaction was really a legalised plunder. Everything was sold at one-tenth of its value. Here is a conversation between two Turks in a coffee house: ‘What a pity things were sold at such a low price! I could not stand the sight in the streets; I saw many cheap things, but my conscience would not permit me to buy anything.’ The other fellow replied: ‘Well done! What a conscience you have! If you really pitied them, you should have bought something and offered them a good price! If you and I do not buy, to whom will the poor people sell?’ It is to their credit that many of the old school Turks really took pity on the persecuted Armenians. During the massacres of 1895 many Turks had shielded and saved Armenians, but in this instance no one dared express his feelings or do an act of kindness. It is said that a Turk was hanged in front of his own house in Vezir Köprü, in the Vilayet of Sivas, for giving shelter to an Armenian.”

Footnote 135:

This is brought out very clearly in the narrative subsequently published by the same writer:

“A blind old man named CZ., whose son is a physician in the United States, was scarcely able to walk, even with the aid of a staff. The Mohammedan neighbours took pity upon him and promised to take care of him if the Government permitted. I appealed to the Kaimakam and the commandant of the gendarmes. The answer was: ‘Impossible; all have to go; no Armenian is to be left behind, whether blind, deaf or paralytic.’

“The Kaimakam regretted that he found himself in office at such a time; he was sorry he had ever entered the official life. His father, a professor in the Turkish University in Constantinople, had advised him to go into business, but, as he had had no capital, he entered the Government Service.”

Footnote 136:

See Docs. 68, 82 and 122.

Footnote 137:

We know from other sources that Mr. CC. was put to death.—EDITOR.

XII. THE CITY OF ANGORA.

Angora is the capital of a vilayet, and the terminus of a branch line of the Anatolian Railway. It is the half-way house between Constantinople and Sivas, and the focus of traffic with all the provinces of the north-east. It is naturally an important centre of commerce as well as of administration, and there was a strong Armenian element in the population of the town.

_Our information regarding the destruction of the Armenians at Angora is comparatively scanty—scantier, perhaps, than in the case of any other Armenian centre of equal importance in the Ottoman Empire. Yet the documents included in this section, together with incidental references in other pieces of testimony (e.g., Doc. 109, suffice to show that the Government’s order was executed here in the same fashion as at Sivas and at X._

95. ANGORA: STATEMENT BY A TRAVELLER, NOT OF ARMENIAN NATIONALITY, WHO PASSED THROUGH ANGORA IN AUGUST, 1915.

While the Armenians of Sivas and other Armenian provinces were being deported, there were repeated rumours that the deportation was to be confined to the seven vilayets in which special reforms were due to be carried out. As in the case of 1894-5, the promise of reforms was followed by massacres—and that almost throughout the whole Ottoman Empire.

The Vali of Angora, a really good man, refused to carry out the orders from Constantinople to deport the Armenians of Angora, so the Commander of the Military Forces of the Vilayet and the Chief of the Police agreed with the Vali and supported him. The leading Turks of Angora, including the religious leaders, were all of the same mind. They knew that the Christians of the place were all loyal and useful subjects of the Empire.

The Armenians here were chiefly Roman Catholics, and were all truly loyal to the Turkish Government. They had no sympathy with any national aspirations. They even refused to be called Armenians. They were simply called the “Catholic Nation,” and the Government so regarded them. There were some 15,000 to 20,000 of them, and they were leaders in commerce and trade. They had more outward polish than other Armenians. They spoke Turkish, and wrote it in Armenian characters.

There were also some 300 to 400 other Armenian families who were members of the National or Gregorian Church, and had settled in Angora from various parts of Turkey.

The Armenians’ houses and shops were searched during July, 1915, and neither arms nor incriminating documents were found. But the central authorities in Constantinople had decreed their extermination, and, as the Vali refused to obey them, both he and the Chief of the Police were dismissed. Their successors made themselves ready tools to carry out any orders given from above. They succeeded in deporting all the Armenians of Angora.

As in other places, a number of leading Armenians were first arrested, including some Catholics. This was towards the end of July, 1915. The Catholics were soon released; those who remained in gaol were tortured terribly. Then all the Armenians of all creeds had to register their names, including women and children—without any omissions—at the police stations. For several days the police stations were packed with people. As soon as the list was completed the deportations began. This was the second week in August. Men were led to the prisons, and stripped of all valuables, watches, purses, rings, &c. They were told that these things would be taken care of by the Government and that they would find them all safe at the place of their destination. An eye-witness who had visited the Chief of the Police, saw his office choked up with piles of such articles taken from the Armenians.

Then they were sent away, principally in three directions—some along the high-road that leads to Kaisaria and Yozgad, others in the Süngürlü direction, and others westward. Reports came from all directions that these exiles were all killed after proceeding some miles from the city. It was said that one party was shot, but in all the other cases the Turks practised economy, killing their victims with axes and daggers. Some of the perpetrators of these horrible crimes boasted of it openly in the cafés, giving details of their achievements and the number of their victims. One Albanian said he had killed fifty men. Villagers from Kilidjlar, on the way to Süngürlü, spoke to many people confidentially of how the ground in their neighbourhood was soaked with blood.

Those arrested and deported first were chiefly Gregorians, with a few Protestants among them. By the middle of August these had all been deported. They were all men; the women were apparently safe. The Government in some instances began to give money for the support of the poor; but the scenes at the office of the Chief of the Police and at the entrance of the gaol were heart-rending. There were women and children anxiously waiting to make enquiries about their dear ones—husbands, or sons, or fathers, or friends. The only answers they got were vague assurances that they were all safe. Some, they were told, were already proceeding to their destination, and others were soon to leave. This was simply a war-measure, a temporary arrangement; as soon as the war was over, all would return home; any of the women desiring to follow their husbands or relations would be sent to the same place as they.

After the departure of the Gregorians (including some Protestants as well) about the middle of August, it was rumoured that Protestants and Catholics would be exempted from deportation. The promise was observed in some instances, e.g., in Istanos, which is a village near Angora, within about twenty miles of the city. All the Armenians of Istanos were brought, chained, to Angora. Then, after the order for exemption, the Protestants were set at liberty to return home, whereas the Gregorians were all deported.

As for the Catholics, the leaders of the Union and Progress Party sent a special message to the Bishop and his Council stating that, if the whole Catholic community, headed by the Bishop and the priests, would accept Islam, they should all remain unmolested; otherwise the order was to be carried out. This is an ascertained fact. But they all preferred to stand firm in their faith, and rejected the proposal of the Committee.

Consequently, on the last Friday in August, 1915, all the Catholics—that is, the men—were arrested. According to one earlier report, they were then butchered at a short distance from Angora; but a later report says that, when the plans for this murder were ready, there suddenly came special envoys from the Government with instructions that the Catholics were to be deported safely. Consequently they were sent to Konia, and thence to the Adana district.

The latter story may be true, as it is a fact that the Papal Envoy in Constantinople and the Austrian Ambassador pressed the Turks hard in defence of the Catholics, and they are said to have secured promises of exemption for the Catholics from Enver and Talaat. But, however that may be, it is difficult to have any preference as between an immediate death and the slower process, for deportation is nothing but a slow process of execution.

The very day that the Catholic men were sent away, all the Armenian women in Angora were hurried off to the railway station. They were told to make haste and catch up their husbands. They were at liberty to take any valuables with them. As soon as the poor creatures reached the station, they were all packed by scores, like cattle, in the sheds and warehouses and barns there. The scenes in the town and at the station defy description. All the men were gone—no one knew where—and now the rest, the women and children, were left in anguish and sorrow, pain and despair, in the company of the Turkish soldiers.

Any of the women and children that accepted Islam were brought back to the town and given to prominent Turks. Those who refused were deported to Syria and Mesopotamia. Their fate must be similar to that of other sufferers from other regions.

A few Protestant families were left unmolested in the town. The Protestant pastor was deported, and nothing is known of his fate.

Many children were circumcised and placed in so-called orphanages.

96. ANGORA: EXTRACT FROM THE NARRATIVE (DOC. 88) OF MISS AA., A FOREIGN TRAVELLER IN ASIATIC TURKEY; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

It is strange that one can live constantly in Asia Minor and actually see very little of the crimes that are going on. As one travels across the country, he feels continually the dead silence of a situation which is surrounded by crime and from which he is continually shielded.

I have just come from X. to Constantinople, five days’ journey by wagon. After waiting a week in Angora, I succeeded in getting one day further along the railway to Eski Shehr, where one must wait two days longer. And finally, on a belated train, with neither light nor heating in the first-class carriage, I arrived late on the succeeding day in Constantinople.

I came alone with a Tatar servant. An English exile, who had been for many years in business in this country, joined my company and came part of the way towards his home. The English prisoners are treated very well in the country. This man, after being exiled for more than ten months, had been allowed his freedom. There are English prisoners to be found all through the country. I met several at Tchoroum. They are allowed to have a house and servants, and are treated politely, especially those of them who can speak Turkish. They go and come in the fields, and even can go hunting if they choose, and they are only restricted at night by a rule that they must be in their house by 8 o’clock. The American missionaries have supplied them with reading and are able to be distributing agents for the allowance of money made to them by the American Embassy. They are full of praise for the American Embassy, for its generosity and care.

Some of these men had been carried in the night from Angora eastward. When they started out from Angora, they could not understand why they were taken at night; but when, in utter darkness, they passed the bridge over the river beyond Asi Yozgad, and for an hour were nearly suffocated with the odour that came to them from decaying flesh, they knew why they were not allowed to pass in the daylight. People say that the mountains round Asi Yozgad are a cemetery; I could not see evidences that would prove this, except some suspicious heaps of earth and stone that seemed to me likely to have been raised over pits that had been dug.

In Angora I learned that the tanners and the butchers of the city had been called to Asi Yozgad, and the Armenians committed to them for murder. The tanner’s knife is a circular affair, while the butcher’s knife is a small axe, and they killed people by using the instruments which they knew best how to use.

These stories are too horrible for repetition.

The Ottoman Bank President showed bank-notes soaked with blood and struck through with daggers with the blot round the hole, and some torn that had evidently been ripped from the clothing of people who had been killed—and these were placed on ordinary deposit in the bank by Turkish officers.

An interesting story was told of the Catholics of Angora. It had been rumoured, at the time people were deported from Angora, that the Catholics were to be allowed to be free. But the rumour was not corroborated, and the Government did not recognise it. So the Catholics were all gathered together at the station and sent off. Many of the men had been sent separately before, but this was a second large company. I think it also included women. They had reached this town, Asi Yozgad, and the people were there to kill them. The priests with them begged ten minutes for prayers and the presenting of the sacrament to them. The ten minutes were granted, and, as the whole company knelt and prayed, a horseman rode up suddenly, shaking a paper in front of him and crying: “Your freedom is given! Your freedom is given! You are not to be killed!” The officers would not send them back, but they saved their lives and sent them south instead.

The favour that had been obtained through the Austrian and American Embassies in Constantinople for Catholics and Protestants to be exempted from deportation, is in some cases being faithfully observed, but in others not at all. I was in Sivas when the rich village of Perkenik was entirely and most ruthlessly deported. It was an entirely Catholic village of perhaps one thousand homes. They had beautiful horses and great flocks of sheep. The flocks and horses were sent into the city, and the people were literally driven out with whips. When a complaint was made to the officers that this should not be done, because they were Catholics and had been especially faithful to the Government at all times, the reply was given that politics had changed, and that Italy had entered the war since this order had come from Constantinople.

In Angora I found that many Catholic women and children had been left there, but all have become Mohammedans. The Protestant women and children were also still there, though the men have practically all been taken away. A few have been heard from at Osmania.

At Süngürlü, I visited the Protestant community after I arrived in the evening. Their story was a sad one. They had been threatened that they would be deported with the other Armenians of the city, but one of their number, who was in employment elsewhere but was at home for a time on a holiday, besought the Kaimakam for the Protestants. The Kaimakam said he had no orders, but that he would wire to Constantinople and see what the orders were. In the meantime they were all taken to “hans,” and families were ruthlessly broken up. However, the Protestant community managed to get together for a meeting, and, as a body, they put in a formal petition to the Government for their safety, saying that they knew it was the intention of the Constantinople Government that the Protestants should be saved. Finally the Kaimakam yielded to this request and returned them all to their homes; the Gregorians were all sent away from the city, and from several reliable sources the story has come to me that none of them got further than Yozgad alive. These Protestants and the families of a few Armenian soldiers remained in Süngürlü for a few weeks, and then all at once they were taken up and carried to different villages. Again families were broken up, and they suffered great deprivations because the Turkish villagers were afraid to feed them. However, after two weeks’ absence from the city, they were allowed to come back to their homes. One large family, of the influential ones, was chosen out and compelled to accept Islam. This family included the spokesman who had been instrumental in saving them.

97. ANGORA: EXTRACT FROM A LETTER[138] DATED 16th SEPTEMBER, 1915; APPENDED TO THE MEMORANDUM (DOC. 11), DATED 15/28th OCTOBER, 1915, FROM A WELL-INFORMED SOURCE AT BUKAREST.

At the end of the month of July, all Armenian men from 15 to 70 years of age were arrested without exception, bound together in gangs of four, and despatched towards Kaisaria. Everything they possessed had first been stolen from them, except for 3½ piastres that each man was allowed to keep. In the valley of Beyhan[139] Boghazi, six or seven hours’ distance from the town, they were attacked by a wild horde of Turkish peasants, and, in pursuance of the order, were all massacred with clubs, hammers, axes, scythes, spades, saws—in a word, with every implement that causes a slow and painful death. Some shore off their heads, ears, noses, hands, feet with scythes; others put out their eyes. Thus was exterminated the whole male Armenian population of Angora, including the “political prisoners” who had been brought thither from Ayash and Kingri[140], and our best poets, professors and journalists, as well as the manager of the Imperial Ottoman Bank in Angora, and all Armenian officials in the public service. The bodies of the victims were left in pieces in the valley, to be devoured by the wild beasts. The gendarmes boast about the part they played in these exploits.

Ten or fifteen days after these massacres, the Government arrested the men of the Armenian Catholic community at Angora. A convoy of 800 persons was sent off under the same circumstances as the others. Another convoy of 700 persons followed these, and so on—all bound together in gangs of four, and all deprived of food and clothing. The order had been given that these were not to be murdered en masse; they were to be pushed ahead until they died of hunger and fatigue. Then began the deportation of their families. In two hours, all the women were collected together in the goods-shed at the station. They were left there for from three to five days without food and at the mercy of the gendarmes’ outrages. Children of rich families begged for a piece of bread when they happened to see a passenger. Part of these women had to embrace Islam; the rest, about 500 in number, were deported to Konia. The Armenian soldiers working on the railway have been forced, under threat of death, to embrace Islam. More than 1,500 soldiers have already been converted by force, and they are obliged to make their children and their other relations follow their example.

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Footnote 138:

Name of writer withheld.

Footnote 139:

Beinam (?).

Footnote 140:

Kiangri, Etchangeri.

XIII. THRACE, CONSTANTINOPLE, BROUSSA, AND ISMID.

These districts are divided officially into the Vilayet of Adrianople, the Sandjak of Chataldja, the Vilayets of Constantinople and Broussa, and the Sandjak of Ismid, which contains the first section of the Anatolian Railway. Together they constitute the metropolitan area of the Ottoman Empire, and for many centuries this area had attracted a strong Armenian immigration, in spite of its remoteness from the original home of the Armenian race.

At Constantinople the number of the Armenians had risen to more than 150,000, and in wealth and importance they were becoming serious rivals of the Greeks. In Thrace they had established themselves not only at Adrianople but in all the lesser towns, and seemed likely to reap the benefit of the expulsion of the Greek and Bulgarian elements, which the Ottoman Government had been effecting systematically since the Balkan War. There was a flourishing colony of them at Broussa, the chief city on the Asiatic littoral of the Sea of Marmora, and there were not less than 25,000 of them at Adapazar, in the hinterland of Ismid. This metropolitan region had practically become the centre of gravity of Armenian commerce, and the organisation of the Gregorian Church in the Ottoman Empire was centralised here as well. The Armenian Patriarch had his residence at Constantinople, the administrative centre of the Ottoman Government, and there was a Gregorian Theological Seminary at Armasha, a country town in the vicinity of Ismid.

The Deportation Scheme had emanated from the Government at Constantinople, but the home provinces were among the last to which it was applied. The smaller towns of Thrace seem to have been cleared towards the beginning of August; the clearance was more or less contemporaneous at Broussa and Ismid; the Seminary at Armasha was broken up by the wholesale exile of pupils and teachers, and the flourishing Armenian villages in the district shared the same fate; at Constantinople, the Government compiled a register of Armenian inhabitants, singling out those who were immigrants from the provinces from those actually born in the city, and a considerable number of prominent people in the former class had been deported by the middle of August. However, the Government seems either never to have intended to apply the scheme to Constantinople in its full rigour, or at any rate to have yielded, in the course of applying it, to representations from authoritative quarters. The measure was never here made universal, while at Adrianople it seems hardly to have been put into practice at all until the 10th October, though it was executed then with particular stringency.

The Armenians deported from the metropolitan districts do not seem often to have been massacred on the road—there were no Kurdish tribes or “Chetti” bands at hand. They were despatched towards the Arabian desert along the Anatolian Railway, and this, rather than any clemency on the Government’s part, accounts for the two months’ grace that they received. The Armenians further down the line had been sent off in June and July, and the metropolitan districts had to wait until the consequent congestion had abated. The fate of all those deported by the railway is described in the documents contained in the section (XIV.) following this.

98. THE METROPOLITAN DISTRICTS: INFORMATION PUBLISHED IN THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “GOTCHNAG,” OF NEW YORK.

=(a) Thrace: Survey of the situation[141], published on the 28th August, 1915.=

At Adrianople, all Armenian officials in any administrative, public or financial service have been dismissed by order of the Government. The Turkish soldiers transferred here from other districts are committing unheard-of atrocities. The Armenians are continually exposed to persecution. About fifty Armenians from the city have been imprisoned or exiled. The Armenians are forbidden to go abroad, or even to travel within the boundaries of the Province. The Armenians of Keshan have been exiled. The Armenian boatmen of Silivri have been imprisoned, on the charge of revictualling the English submarines.

The Armenian Church and Monastery at Dhimotika have been confiscated by the Government. They gave two weeks’ grace to the Armenians of this locality in which to emigrate to other parts.

The Armenians of Malgara were also given two weeks’ grace before their exile. Their houses are to be occupied by Turkish refugees from Serbia.

The Armenians of Tchorlu have been deported.

=(b) Constantinople: Statement[141], published on the 4th September, 1915.=

In all the quarters of Constantinople they have begun to make a register of the Armenians, entering on separate lists those actually born in Armenia and those whose birthplace is Constantinople. It is thought that they are going to deport the immigrants from Armenia.

Six Armenian pupils of the Normal School of Ottoman Teachers at Constantinople have been poisoned during a meal. One of them—Khosrov, born at Van—has died; the five others are under treatment in hospital. The Turkish press at Constantinople is beginning to prepare public opinion for the loss of Armenia. The Tanin and the Sabah, in particular, have devoted articles to the subject, preaching the idea that it is in Turkey’s best interest to have a homogeneous population. In consequence, they argue, the Armenians must be eliminated as irreconcilable enemies.

=(c) Constantinople and the neighbourhood: Statement[141] published on the 2nd October, 1915.=

According to a despatch published in the American Press, the Armenians of the Pera quarter (of Constantinople) have taken flight. Nearly 4,000 Armenians from Constantinople have found asylum in Bulgaria. Recently there was a rumour that all the Armenians in the Scutari quarter were going to be deported. Enver Pasha has confirmed these rumours, and added that, if he chooses, he can have all the Christians of Constantinople deported within a fortnight, and leave no one there but Turks and Germans. According to another rumour, the Armenians of Scutari and Ortakeui have already been deported. The villages on the upper Bosphorus have likewise been cleared of their Armenian inhabitants. We have been informed by letter that the Armenian girls who were being educated at the American school at Constantinople have been carried off by the Turks.

At Broussa they have converted all the rich Armenians to Islam; the poor have been deported. Their children have been sold at 20 piastres each (3s. 4d.).

At Smyrna, several Armenians were recently hanged. The Austrian Consul on the spot requested the Austrian Ambassador at Constantinople to demand an explanation from the Turkish Government. He received the reply that the Armenians possess a Patriarchate, and ought to make any representations through this channel. “As for you, if you are our allies, you ought not to meddle in such questions.”

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Footnote 141:

Source unspecified.

99. CONSTANTINOPLE: LETTER, DATED CONSTANTINOPLE, 13/26th OCTOBER, 1915, FROM AN ARMENIAN INHABITANT; PUBLISHED IN THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “BALKANIAN MAMOUL,” OF ROUSTCHOUK[142].

You must by now have received my second letter. To-day I shall not be able to write you very much, for time is short and I am extremely depressed in spirit.

Besides, what would you have me write? For ever it is calamities, miseries and sorrows.

The last news is that the Seminarists of Armasha have been sent to Constantinople and put under the charge of the Patriarchate. The whole congregation, with its Superior at its head, has been deported and the Convent has been confiscated; the Superior has even been robbed of the £400 (Turkish) realised by the sale of the Convent’s live stock and various other properties.

A month ago they began to deport the unmarried men from the provinces who had established themselves at Constantinople. So far they have deported from four to five thousand persons, and this without warning and without giving them time to put their affairs in order. The families of those deported to Ayash and Etchangeri[143] had been given notice to leave Constantinople, but afterwards this order was reconsidered. Is this the beginning of the deportation of the Armenian population of Constantinople, for which the Government has so far shown a certain consideration?

The majority of those who had been deported to Ayash and Etchangeri have been brought back to Angora; at the present moment we have no news of them, and no news either of those who have remained at Ayash and Etchangeri. As I wrote to you in my last letter, they also have been assassinated. Indeed, a connection of the Prefect of Police actually said: “The Armenians are making demonstrations at Sofia, Roustchouk and other places, and are presenting protests. We have given them their answer by exterminating the prisoners at Ayash.”

As for the deportations from Anatolia and Armenia, they are being continued systematically. The whole Armenian population of Konia and Angora is on the road, and is at present concentrated along the line of the Baghdad Railway, in the last extremity of misery. They are being sent to Tarsus and Aleppo, to be forwarded in due course to the desert.

In consequence of certain diplomatic representations, the Government had given instructions not to deport the Catholic or Protestant Armenian families, or those whose bread-winners had been mobilised. But these instructions have been very speedily withdrawn, and are only followed in a small number of places.

The families of mobilised Armenian soldiers who had got as far as the course of the Railway, had received orders to wait, but we hear now that they have been subjected to brutal treatment. These women, who were concentrated at Eregli, beyond Konia, had made representations to the Government and claimed the restoration of their mobilised sons. The result of these representations is not yet known.

The situation of the exiles in Syria is lamentable. The despatch of relief is urgently required, in order at least to save the survivors. Let the Armenian colonists abroad come to their aid before it is too late. A halfpenny saves a life. Don’t disdain to give this halfpenny.

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Footnote 142:

Date unspecified.

Footnote 143:

Kiangri, Kingri.

100. ADRIANOPLE: DESPATCH FROM THE CORRESPONDENT OF THE LONDON “TIMES” AT BUKAREST, DATED 18th DECEMBER AND PUBLISHED ON THE 21st DECEMBER, 1915.

I have received information in regard to the wholesale extirpation of the Armenian population of Adrianople.

On the 10th October the Turkish police arrested 45 Armenian inhabitants who had become Bulgarian subjects. The prisoners were transported to Constantinople, and thence to Asia Minor, with the exception of 10 who escaped and took refuge in the Bulgarian Legation at Pera. On the intervention of the Bulgarian Government these persons obtained liberty to return to Karagatch. In regard to the fate of the remaining 35 the Porte professes ignorance.

Shortly afterwards, all the Armenians in Adrianople—about 1,600 persons—were arrested, and the men immediately deported to Asia Minor. The women and children were detained two days in prison before removal, and were subjected to brutal treatment by their captors. Several were subsequently placed in sailing vessels for transportation to Asia Minor. Two of the vessels foundered off Rodosto and most of those on board were drowned. Some of the exiled families were sold at derisory prices, for the most part to Jews.

A deputation from Karagatch proceeded to Sofia to invoke the intervention of the Government, but have received no reply to their petition. A memorial previously addressed to the Bulgarian Government by another deputation gives a frightful picture of the sufferings of Armenian prisoners in Asia Minor at the hands of the Turkish authorities.

The document furnishes a list of 29 districts in which the whole Armenian population, numbering some 835,000 persons, have been either killed or exiled or forcibly converted to Islam. One ecclesiastic was burnt alive, five were hanged or otherwise killed, and ten were imprisoned.

101. BROUSSA: REPORT BY A FOREIGN VISITOR TO THE CITY, DATED 24th SEPTEMBER, 1915; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

It was inevitable that the Armenians, whose deportation from Broussa and the environs had been ordered a few days before my arrival, should occupy some of my attention. It is doubtful whether the full significance of this measure can be realized without a visit to the interior, where the results may be seen in all their appalling details. Words are inadequate to describe the utter misery and destitution of these hordes of emigrants who are to-day roaming all over Asia Minor. The roads are crowded with thousands upon thousands of these unfortunate wretches, considering themselves lucky if they are able to procure—at the sacrifice of a small fortune—an ox-cart for their families and a few belongings; many of them journeying on foot—men, women and children, tired, haggard, and half-starved—the pictures of want and desolation. Broussa was among the last of the more important cities to receive the order for the deportation of the Armenians, so that I had occasion to see the application of the measure from the very beginning. Thus I met the first contingents of the exiles between Broussa and Yeni-Shehr. The authorities had given them three days in which to clear out, with the result that they could not sell any of their property, even had there been buyers. All personal property, such as furniture, clothes, tools, etc., which they could not take with them, had to be left behind, and the Turks quite openly distributed them among themselves, often even in the presence of their owners! As regards the houses evacuated by the Armenians, a little more red tape was gone through, but the effect was the same. The Armenian proprietor was called before a magistrate, made to sign a document that he had sold the house to a certain individual (of course always a Moslem), and was given a roll of banknotes. No sooner had he left the room than the money was taken from him by the police and returned to the magistrate, to be used in hundreds of similar cases!

I realised, of course, that I was quite powerless—even unofficially—to interfere with these proceedings. But there were certain other points which came to my knowledge and about which I did not hesitate to speak to the Vali—always quite informally only—as they seemed to me a useless and senseless aggravation in a situation which was already trying enough. In the first place, hundreds of Catholic and Protestant Armenians had been ordered away—many of them had even left—although, according to the decision of the Government, they had a right to remain. I obtained from the Vali the promise that in future these two denominations should not be disturbed, and that those who had “by mistake” been sent away should be called back. This was done, and during the next few weeks a number of Catholic and Protestant families returned. I then asked that those ordered to leave should be given at least a week, and in a few special cases even two weeks, in which to get ready. This enabled many families to make the most necessary preparations for the journey. A few casual remarks to the Vali about flogging and forcible conversions of women and girls to Mohammedanism seem to have put a stop also to these two outrages—at least, so I was informed at the American School, which was in close contact with everything going on in the Armenian community. I cannot but refer in this connection to the altogether admirable work done by the ladies of this institution in helping the unfortunate exiles in the most unselfish and efficient manner. But for their devotion and practical assistance, the sufferings of many families must needs have been much greater.

Unfortunately, the hardships of exile and privation are not the only dangers to which the Armenians are exposed. There can be no doubt that many of them—chiefly men—have been massacred in cold blood. Although no instances of this seem to have occurred during my stay in Broussa, I was informed by very trustworthy sources that, shortly before my arrival, about 170 of the most prominent Armenians from Broussa and neighbouring towns had been shot near Adranos, whither they had been exiled in June. I have all the more reason to credit this report because, when I made inquiries concerning two of the men, the brothers A., whose relatives live in America and who are insured with American companies, the Vali replied evasively, but finally said that he had heard that they escaped from custody and had disappeared!

However, even if no Armenians had been killed outright, the result would be the same, for the deportation as carried out at present is merely a polite form of massacre. Unless the whole movement be stopped at once, there is, I am firmly convinced, not the slightest chance of any of the exiles surviving this coming winter, except possibly the very wealthiest amongst them.

Nor do the authorities make any secret of the fact that their main object is the extermination of the whole Armenian race. The Vali admitted quite frankly: “We are determined to get rid, once and for all, of this cancer in our country. It has been our greatest political danger, only we never realized it as much as we do now. It is true that many innocents are suffering with the guilty, but we have no time to make any distinctions. We know it means an economic loss to us, but it is nothing compared with the danger we are thereby escaping!”

Without commenting on the truth or falsity of these remarks, the fact remains that the Turks are rapidly depleting their country of some of the thriftiest, most intelligent, and, in many respects, the most valuable elements of their population. One has only to walk through the streets of any town in the interior to realize how this deportation has wrought havoc with the life of the community. Nearly all doctors, dentists, tailors, carpenters are gone—in short, every profession or trade requiring the least skill has been stopped, not to mention the complete stagnation of all business of any consequence. Even Turks are realizing the danger, and in some villages they petitioned the authorities to allow certain Armenians to remain! It is therefore all the more surprising that the Ottoman Government persists in this shortsighted policy, for there can be little doubt that every place left vacant by an Armenian will—irrespective of the outcome of the European conflict—have to be filled by a foreigner, as the Turk has proved himself totally incapable of doing this kind of work.

102. ADAPAZAR: STATEMENT, DATED 24th SEPTEMBER, 1915, BY A FOREIGN RESIDENT IN TURKEY; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

On the 1st August the beating began in the church. The object of this was to force the people to bring in any ammunition and firearms they might have. Most of the people accepted their fate in silence, but one man said boldly: “You must answer to God in heaven for these things.”

“What do I care for your God in heaven? He says you are good people and I must not beat you; but he is not good, we must kill him.”

A mother threw herself in front of her consumptive son, and herself received the stripes. A German woman tried to save her Armenian husband. “Get out of the way or I will beat you,” cried the Beast. “I don’t care for the Emperor himself; my orders come from Talaat Bey.”

Some Armenian ladies came to intercede with the Beast, and for a day or two the beatings were less vigorous.

Then came the awful Saturday, the day of darkness and horror. Women came to our house saying: “They are beating the Armenian men to death, and they are going to beat the women next!” I ran to a neighbour’s house and there found men and women crying. The Protestant brethren had gotten out of the church and were telling their story. “They are beating the men frightfully,” they cried. “They say they will throw us into the River Sakaria; they will send us into exile; they will make Mohammedans of us; they will beat our women next; they are coming to the house.”

“Come to the school and I will put up the American flag,” I said. Soon after, more women came to the school to find out if I could do something.

“We will go to the mayor; we will go to the Beast,” said they, “and we are all losing our heads!”

Then our woman doctor came, crying frightfully. She had been down to the church to care for the wounded. Then the trustee came. “I want you to take my money and give it to my son if I die,” said he. Then he sat down and wept, the tears rolling down his face.

At last I could endure it no longer. “I am going to the church; I do not care what you say,” I exclaimed. I did not know the way and every one was afraid to show me, but I found it by inquiring. One man said: “You are going to the church? It is hell there.” I arrived and walked past the guards at the gate without looking at them, and came to the door and lo, one of the trustees came to meet me. We walked up and down the church together and he remarked: “I think the police do not like to see you.” I said: “They had better not; I am going to America to tell of all these things.” He said there was one Turkish soldier outside the church in tears. He said he had been crying three days and nights because of the awful treatment of the Armenian people. Some of the people were shut up ten days in the church, but special favour was shown to the Protestants; none were beaten, and they had more liberty to go in and out. During all this time the Armenian shops were closed, and Armenians were not allowed to go to market to buy food or even to their gardens to gather their fruits, so that many were on the verge of starvation.

Three days after this the beating ceased and we were beginning to take courage again; a few Armenian shops were opened; but the next morning early, which was Sunday, news came that all the Armenians in Adapazar, numbering about 25,000, were to be sent into exile. They were to go to Konia by freight train, if they could pay their passage, and then to Mosul by carriage—on foot a journey of weeks and months. Such awful stories came to us about things that had happened to those who went on foot, that people sold their last possessions to get enough to pay their train passage. They were afraid to take money with them. The poor had none to take; the rich must leave all their property behind. If they took money they feared violence. By Wednesday there were no goods trains to send them by, as so many had gone, but all the people were turned out into the streets to await their turn—many for several days—except the Protestants, who were allowed to come to the Protestant church to wait, while some of the wealthy people remained in their houses. The Protestants, in Adapazar especially, were in good favour with the Government, and their condition is somewhat hopeful.

A card has been received, written three weeks after the exile began, from Eski Shehr, telling how some of the Protestants in the hotel there were allowed to have their church services on Sunday and were being well treated. They thought it possible that they might be able to rent houses and remain there. If this is indeed true it will be a very great blessing.

103. ADAPAZAR: FULLER STATEMENT BY THE AUTHOR OF THE PRECEDING DOCUMENT; PUBLISHED IN THE JOURNAL “THE NEW ARMENIA,” OF NEW YORK, 15th MAY, 1916.

For several months there had been occasional exiles from Adapazar, but we felt safe because we had a good Mayor and a good Military Commander in the city. They were our friends. The Commander frequently joined us in our daily games of croquet, while the sick soldiers watched us from the windows. We gave a garden party to all the officers. They liked us and would have spared the school and the Protestants had they been able. But one day little Arousiag, one of our youngest pupils, came to us, a refugee, with only the clothes on her back. She had been staying with relatives at Sabandja, but the whole village had been exiled. As she had been born in America, of naturalized parents, she was saved, and I was afterwards able to bring her to her parents in America.

Soon after, some villagers whom I knew came from another mountain village, Tchalgara, and from their lips I heard how for seven days the men had been shut up in the church and beaten—especially the priest—until some fainted. The Government was searching for weapons, and the men were beaten until they either produced their own or secured others to surrender. Then in Bardezag, our nearest neighbouring missionary city, similar things happened. We did not know what was going on in the interior, although occasional vague rumours had come to us.

Then horrible cruelties began in Adapazar. About 500 important men were imprisoned in the Gregorian church. Those belonging to the Socialist Party were mercilessly beaten. Most accepted their fate in silence, but one man said boldly: “You must answer to God in Heaven for these things.” “You have no God but me,” was the response, and the man was beaten till his feet were red with blood. “What do I care for your Mayor?” continued the Beast, as he was called: “He says you are good people, but he is no good himself. Kill me if you wish,” he continued, “but ten men will come to take my place.” A mother threw herself in front of her invalid son and herself received the stripes. A German woman tried to save her Armenian husband. “Get out of the way or I’ll beat you,” cried the Beast; “I do not care for the German Emperor himself, my orders come from Talaat Bey.” But afterwards the man was released. When I heard these things I knew it was of no use for me to try to interfere; if the Beast would not listen to a German, he certainly would not to an American.

One day two of our delicate ladies went to see the Beast—to plead, like Queen Esther, for their people—saying, by this act: “If I perish, I perish.” They found a man of fine appearance who had been educated in Europe, and who received them most politely. “We have heard bad things about you,” they said, “but now we see that you are a good man. Can’t you persuade the people to surrender their arms without beating them?” “I am glad to see you so patriotic,” he responded, “and would be glad of your assistance. You go, too, to the houses and persuade the people to give up their arms, and it will be well with them.” So these two ladies hired a carriage and drove up and down the city, exhorting the people to surrender all their arms.

For a day or two the beatings were less. Then came the awful Saturday—the day of darkness and horror. Someone came running to the school-house crying: “They are beating the men in the church to death, and are going to begin on the women next.”

I ran over to the neighbour’s house and there I found men and women crying. Two of our Protestant brethren had escaped from the church and were telling their story. “They are beating the men frightfully,” they cried. “They say they will throw us into the River Sakaria; they will send us all into exile; they will make Mohammedans of us. They are going to the houses to beat the women next.” I begged the women to come to the school and I would put up the American flag, but they did not wish to leave their houses to be pillaged, although they promised to come if necessary.

Soon after, more women came to the school, frantic to do something. “We will go to the Beast; we will go to the Mayor,” they cried, and we were all losing our heads. Then our lady doctor came. She had been to the church to care for the wounded and the tears were streaming down her face. Then one of the school trustees came. “I want you to take my money and give it to my son if I die,” he said. Then he sat down and the tears streamed down his face and mine. At last I could endure it no longer. “I am going to the church; I don’t care what you say!” I exclaimed, and I put on my hat and started. I did not know the way to the Gregorian church and everyone was afraid to show me, so I had to find my way by inquiry. “You are going to the church?” asked one man: “It is hell there.” I arrived. I walked past the guards without even looking at them, and there at the open door stood one of the trustees, Mr. Alexanian. “Can’t I speak to the police and get you out?” I asked. The other trustees had already left. “No,” he said, “I am superintendent now.”

The beatings had ceased for a time, in order that leading men might go out to search for weapons. Mr. Alexanian would write down their names as they went out, erasing them when the men returned. “I am glad I was here last night,” he continued, “for I have been able to help the poor people to-day.” How many of us would be glad of the privilege of spending a sleepless, bedless, chairless night for the sake of being useful? He told the same sad story of awful beatings. No Protestant had been beaten. The Turks have always been favourable towards the Protestants, especially in Adapazar. This trustee told how after the beatings he went outside the church and found a Turkish soldier in tears, who said he had been crying three days and nights because of the wrongs inflicted upon the Armenian people. So you see there are some good Turks. It is the Government that is responsible, not all the people.

Soon after this, an important exile returned, the father of our two sweetest kindergarten children, and the head of a society. Great anxiety was felt on his behalf, for we feared he would be hanged and we grieved for his refined and delicate wife. He answered boldly at the trial. “Why do you punish these men? If there is any fault it is mine, and yet I also am guiltless. This society was organized with the permission of the Government. You allowed us to obtain firearms.” Which was all very true. The Government was hatching a diabolical scheme to send all the Armenians into an endless exile, and wished first to disarm them.

Sunday brought new terrors but no especial troubles. On Monday the Beast left the city, and our hearts were filled with a subdued rejoicing, even though he said he would return on Wednesday. We did not believe it. We thought he had been recalled on account of his cruelties. As to the man himself, he was an ex-convict, having been implicated in a conspiracy against the Government and sentenced to a thousand years imprisonment. He was working for his liberty by carrying on this devilish work, and, to give himself courage for it, he drank heavily of the most intoxicating liquor.

During these ten days of imprisonment all Armenian shops were closed. The Armenians could not go to market to buy provisions or even to gather the produce of their gardens. Many were on the verge of starvation. On Saturday evening a few shops were opened, and we began to take heart a little. Some were fearful of exile, but I declared it would be impossible to send from twenty to thirty thousand Armenians from one city into exile, though a few would doubtless be sent. At this time the Government collected taxes from the Christians a year in advance—a bad sign. On Sunday morning I was awakened early by someone calling below my window. I put out my head and was informed that all the Armenians in Adapazar were to be sent into exile. As early as possible I went to the Mayor to intercede for the people, but it was useless. He would not even promise to protect our American property, and out of the entire city I could save only little Arousiag, who was American born.

From that Sunday onwards, the streets were full of Armenians trying to sell their possessions for a mere pittance. All was very quiet—the silence of despair. Even the Turks looked serious, for they knew that their city was financially ruined, as the Armenians are the most thrifty and skilful of all the peoples of Turkey. In spite of apparent quiet, however, robbery was not lacking. A poor servant girl was trying to sell her sewing machine—her only possession—and when she refused to sell it for four dollars, a man seized it and ran away with it. A few days later, the husband of one of our school servants was bringing their machine to our school when a man snatched it from his shoulders.

The people who had any money went to Konia (the ancient Iconium) in goods-trucks, being allowed to take only a few possessions with them. They were told to leave their possessions in the churches and they would be safeguarded, but the same promise had been made in Sabandja, and the church had been looted almost before the people were out of the city, so nobody trusted this promise. The exiles were crowded on the top of their possessions, sixty to eighty people in a truck marked for forty people. Some missionaries from the south met a train-load of these refugees and described their condition as miserable in the extreme. One girl had hanged herself on the way; others had poison with them. Mothers were holding out their beautiful babies and begging the missionaries to take them. A Turkish officer ordered the Americans off, saying: “These Armenians are dangerous people; they may have bombs.”

From Konia they were to go by foot or carriage to a desert place called Mosul, in Mesopotamia. Those who had no money must make the entire journey on foot. Such dreadful stories came to their ears as to the treatment of those who walked—of how people were not allowed to sell them bread, of how they were robbed, and families separated, the men slain and the women and girls given to the Turks, the children sold to be brought up as Mohammedans—that people sold their last possession so as to be able to go as far as possible by train.

They were afraid to take money with them, lest they should be robbed by the way. They must leave all their property behind, and as soon as they vacated their houses, refugees from Macedonia took possession of them. What a lamentable condition—to be poor and in danger of starvation; to be rich, accustomed to luxury and refinement, and then suffer all these things; to be a woman, especially a pretty woman, with all a woman’s dangers (some in Constantinople told me they would disfigure their faces if they were exiled); to be a man and see all these things and yet be unable to lift a finger in resistance; to be there and endure; to be here and imagine!

How can the people keep their faith in God during such trials? How many will deny and curse Him? How many will accept Mohammedanism? Or how many will remain faithful to the end, and say through their tears: “Though He slay me—or worse than slay me—yet will I trust in Him?” Again and again they said to me: “Oh, if they would only kill me now, I would not care; but I fear they will try to force me to become a Mohammedan.”

What was the meaning of all this? It was the death blow aimed at Christianity in Turkey, or, in other words, the extermination of the Armenian people—their extermination or amalgamation. And why? At the beginning of the struggle, or soon after, the Holy War was declared. This signified a purpose to kill all Christians, the reward for which is eternal pleasure in the Mohammedan paradise. At first Turkey declared that the Holy War was directed only against nations at war with herself, but later she waged it against all Christians.

The Armenians were so patient, so silent and uncomplaining. We came very near to each other in those days. “You have made our sorrows your sorrows,” they said to me: “You have an Armenian heart.” But as the realization of what their exile actually meant dawned upon me, I could neither eat nor sleep. One day I said to my friends: “I cannot comfort you to-day; you must comfort me. I think I feel worse than if I were going into exile myself.” And they were so brave and cheerful that I did actually carry away cheer and comfort from that home.

I had planned to remain with my friends until all were gone, but that was impossible. The Protestants were given special favours; they were the last to go, and were allowed to remain in their homes or in the church, while on the Wednesday of that week all other Armenians were turned out into the streets to wait their turn to go. There they waited, with their baggage, for days, by the roadside near the station.

So, with a sad heart, on the Friday of that exile week, I bade farewell to the group of friends gathered at the school-house door, and with little Arousiag mounted on to the top of my goods in the ox-cart, fearing to trust my possessions out of my sight a moment. I put up an umbrella to protect me from the rain and the curious gaze of others. I felt and looked like an exile myself.

When we reached Constantinople, everything looked so peaceful and quiet that I felt disappointed. We had received no news from the city for some time, and thought that it must be nearly in the hands of the enemy. To see women and children all dressed in the height of fashion, and seemingly indifferent to the misery of the world, was a painful contrast.

Not only did I leave terror behind me. In Constantinople also every man’s heart was failing him for fear. There were rumours that Constantinople also would be evacuated, and awful stories of the separation of families, of the Mohammedanizing of Christians, reached our ears. “This is worse than massacre,” again and again they said: “Only let them kill us now.” Everybody was frantic to leave the country, and the police stations were crowded with people seeking, too often in vain, for permission to go to America, Bulgaria, or Roumania. No men at all were allowed to go. They were left behind to be exiled or massacred. On some days women were given permission to leave, and on other days they were refused. It took me, an American, two days to get my papers, with help from the Embassy, and at every step I feared difficulty or refusal because of Arousiag, and also another Armenian girl whom I was bringing with me.

On the train just before we reached the boundary-line, an Armenian family was sent back. Two of our graduates joined us in Bulgaria, and they were said to be the last Armenians to leave Constantinople. I know that some American ladies who joined us later were not allowed to bring a servant with them, although she was badly needed to help them with their babies.

At last we were out of the land of the dreadful Turk, but alas! a part of us has been left behind. In all our silent hours visions float before our mental eyes. As we passed through desolate-looking provinces on our journey, I could see marching, marching, without food or water or rest, my poor friends—the sun beating down upon their heads, the cruel faces and rods of their oppressors urging them on when they were ready to faint with weariness and hunger. No place to buy bread, no bed to lie upon except the bare earth—only marching, marching always. And I wondered whether the sublime faith and courage with which they had started out would fail them in the end. And thinking of these things the words of the Psalmist became my words: “My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, ‘Where is thy God?‘”

But there is a brighter side to the picture. One Sunday on my voyage I turned to Revelation to see if I could find a message for these days, and lo! there it was in Rev. vii., 13-17:—“These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.... They shall hunger no more neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light upon them nor any heat.... And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”

XIV. THE ANATOLIAN RAILWAY.

The Anatolian Railway runs diagonally across Anatolia from the Asiatic suburbs of Constantinople to the Gulf of Iskanderoun (Alexandretta), but, beyond Konia, the line is in the hands of the Baghdad Railway Company, and the construction of this section is still incomplete. The tunnel through the Taurus Range is not yet open to traffic, and the present rail-head is at Bozanti, on the northern side of the mountains. In the Adana plain, a short section of line has long been in working order between Adana itself and the ports of Mersina and Alexandretta. But beyond this, again, there is another breach of continuity at the Amanus Range, and this second mountain barrier has also to be crossed by road before the traveller reaches the railway system that radiates from Aleppo.

The Anatolian Railway follows an ancient artery of trade, and there were important Armenian colonies in the chief places along its course, as well as in places lying off the railway towards the north-east. But the track of the line forms the general limit of Armenian expansion, and defines the Armenian “sphere of influence” in Asiatic Turkey as against the Greek. The only considerable colony of Armenians south-west of the Anatolian Railway is at Smyrna, where they seem to have suffered less severely than in other parts of the Ottoman Empire—we know no more than that a few of the leading Armenians there were hanged.

The deportation of the Armenian colonies in the railway zone appears to have been started during the months of June and July. Their numbers were soon swelled by the still larger streams of exiles from the metropolitan districts (see section XIII. above), and the traffic on the line became hopelessly congested. The hardships of travel in crowded cattle-trucks were painful enough, but now at every station on the line crowds of exiles were detrained to await their turn for transport for interminable periods. The central table-land of Anatolia, which the railway traverses, has a very high average altitude, and even in summer the climate is severe. The exiles were turned out on to the open plateau in an absolutely destitute condition, without food or shelter—here 2,000, here 5,000, here 11,000, here 12,000, here 15,000, here 30,000. These facts and figures are vouched for, by a number of unimpeachable witnesses, in the documents contained in this section. The witnesses write from half-a-dozen different points along the railway, and one of them was himself an exile, experiencing in person the horrors of a concentration camp. But the misery of detention was as nothing compared with what the exiles suffered when their turn came to be carried on to rail-head and driven across the mountains on foot. There are frightful descriptions of their condition by a witness who saw them when they had reached the Adana Plain, and still more terrible accounts of the survivors who had lived to traverse the second mountain barrier and were dragging themselves towards Aleppo.

This agonising journey along the route of the railway was protracted for more than three months. The exiles were mostly uprooted from their homes in August; the first documents date from the beginning of September, and by that date the foremost batches had hardly begun their marches across the first mountain range; the last documents were written in November, and still the vast body of the exiles had not reached Adana, but were huddled together—stationary through exhaustion—on the south-eastern slopes of Taurus and Amanus, between the summits and the plain. One of the latest witnesses reckons the number here at 150,000.

104. THE ANATOLIAN RAILWAY: NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY, DURING THE DEPORTATION OF THE ARMENIANS, BY A PHYSICIAN OF FOREIGN NATIONALITY, WHO HAD BEEN RESIDENT IN TURKEY FOR TEN YEARS; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

A journey through Asia Minor even in “normal” times can be understood only by those who have had the “experience” of travel in Turkey. During war-time there is simply no accommodation at all. Passenger traffic was limited to one train a week until shortly after the time of which I write, when that was cut off too, leaving no train connection with the interior open to the civilian.

On this particular journey, not many hours elapsed before the fact was forced upon one’s consciousness that things were not as they used to be. One felt the sense of unwelcomeness, the aloofness of all fellow-passengers. Conversations were in an undertone, no joviality—looks of suspicion, as if to say: “Who is that infidel who dares intrude himself in such times as these?”

At the first large station a sight burst upon my view which, although I knew and was prepared for it, was nevertheless a shock. There was a mob of a thousand or more people huddled about the station and environs, and long strings of cattle-trucks packed to suffocation with human beings. It was the first glimpse of the actual deportation of the Armenians. Our train drew up to the station, but there was no confusion, no wailing, no shouting, just a mob of subdued people, dejected, sad, hopeless, past tears—looking backward to abandoned homes, to husbands, fathers, brothers who had been torn from them; looking forward to a death in the desert, or to a living death in the hands of captors who were compelled, “by political and military necessity,” to free their land of the curse of a nation which had grown powerful while they themselves stagnated. There were guards everywhere among the people, making communication with them impossible. The advent of a foreigner among them was the sign for eager enquiring looks from some, as if to say: “Can it be that he brings deliverance for us;” while others seemed to accept their lot in settled despair.

The town from which many of these had come, I learned later, was cleaned out completely, except for perhaps a dozen old women too feeble to undertake the journey. A missionary compound in the same town was left unguarded by the Government while, for four successive nights, marauders from a neighbouring village came, and, smashing doors and windows, helped themselves to such things as they could carry away.

Our train sped away, taking with us as many cattle-trucks, packed with men, women and children, as the locomotive could pull. In these trucks one could see improvised hammocks swung above the crowd squatting upon the floor, and in these hammocks the tiny babies—the only individuals in all that crowd oblivious to the horrors of the situation, but doomed nevertheless, in all their innocence, to pay the penalty of human jealousy and greed.

The scenes just described were repeated at various stations; but at the station of ——, as I looked across the fields to the river, I heard the Turkish commander say: “Yes, I have 30,000 here under my charge.” Then I looked as far along the river as I could see, and it was one mass of improvised blanket tents, their only protection from the parching heat of the mid-summer sun. Where this multitude were to get food for their long journey I was unable to see, for although most of them were as yet but a few days’ journey from their homes, they could take but a bit of grain and almost no money with them. Can you imagine the sanitary condition of a camp of 30,000, when absolutely no provision is made, not even as much as would be made for so many cattle?

During the weary days of travel I had as my companion a Turkish captain, who, as the hours dragged by, came to look on me with less of suspicion, growing quite friendly at times. Arrived at ——, the captain went out among the Armenian crowd and soon returned with an Armenian girl of about fifteen years. She was forced into a compartment of an adjoining railway coach, in company with a Turkish woman. When she saw that her mother was not allowed to accompany her she began to realise something of the import of it all. She grew frantic in her efforts to escape, scratching at the window, begging, screaming, tearing her hair and wringing her hands, while the equally grief-crazed mother stood on the railway platform, helpless in her effort to save her daughter. The captain, seeing the unconcealed disapproval in my face, came up and said: “I suppose, Effendi, you don’t approve of such things, but let me tell you how it is. Why, this girl is fortunate. I’ll take her home with me, raise her as a Moslem servant in my home. She will be well cared for and saved from a worse fate—besides that, I even gave the mother a lira gold piece for the girl.” And, as though that were not convincing enough, he added: “Why, these scoundrels have killed two of our Moslems right here in this city within the last few days,” as though that were excuse enough, if excuse were needed, for annihilating the whole Armenian race. I could not refrain from giving him my version of the rotten, diabolical scheme, which, however, fell from his back like water.

It was pitiful to see rough Turkish hawkers offering for sale, from wagons in the street, articles of all kinds stolen or bought for a pittance from the Armenians. As I passed by, one held up for the inspection of a number of Turkish women a child’s white coat, and as I looked at it a vision flashed through my mind of a little girlie across the sea, whom I had seen in a little coat of just about that size, and who looked up into my face and called me “Daddy.”

I learned here, too, of a nurse who had been in one of the mission hospitals, who two days before my arrival there had become almost crazed by the fear of falling into the hands of the human fiends, and had ended her life with poison. Were these isolated or unusual instances, it would excite no comment in this year of unusual things, but when we know of these things going on all over the Empire, repeated in thousands of instances, we begin to realise the enormity of the crimes committed. I spoke again to the captain: “Why are you taking such brutal measures to accomplish your aim? Why not accept the offer of a friendly nation, which offers to pay transportation if you will send these people out of your country to a place of safety?” He replied: “Why, don’t you understand, we don’t want to have to repeat this thing again after a few years. It’s hot down in the deserts of Arabia, and there is no water, and these people can’t stand a hot climate, don’t you see?” Yes, I saw. Anyone could see what would happen to most of them, long before Arabia was reached.

Leaving the railway, I travelled several days by wagon across country. Arrived at ——, I found the process of deportation in full swing, the streets of the Armenian quarter of the city thronged with Armenians, Turkish civilians and Turkish officials. Officers standing in the street directed lesser officers in their work of turning out the households, one after another. The men of these households hurried about to find animals or wagons, paying exorbitant prices out of the little sum which represented all their savings, while others offered rugs and articles of all sorts for sale, that they might get enough money to hire a donkey. Most were unable to get animals at any price, and simply bundled together a few personal belongings and set out, in a dazed condition, not realising what it meant, except that they must go. One old Armenian gentleman, on leaving, accosted his Turkish neighbour, kissing his hand and bidding affectionate good-bye, which was reciprocated by the Turk; evidently these two had for long years been ‘good neighbours.’ Crowds of Turkish women were going about insolently prying into house after house to find valuable rugs or other articles. After being accosted by the police, I returned to my wagon, and, while waiting there, heard the inn-keeper call to one of his men, and say in a stage whisper: “You go out and get rugs—rugs, you understand, by all means get rugs; and, say, don’t pay too much; not more in any case than two medjids (6_s._ 4_d._).” While I waited, the man brought rugs by the armload; they were placed in a room in the inn, while the innkeeper and other men discussed their value and gloated over the purchase for a mere pittance. Four men came by, bearing a corpse covered with a black cloth. Fearing lest they might in this way smuggle out valuables, the innkeeper strode out and flung up the cloth, exclaiming: “What have you fellows got there?”

This general plan of deportation I saw carried out in several towns. Such animals and carriages as were available were loaded with goods and sent to the outskirts of the town, where they waited until all were ready; then they were joined by the crowds on foot and all went off together. It was pitiful enough as they set out, but I met group after group on the road “on the march”—and these travel-stained, worn and haggard—on and on, and on to their death. Ah, yes, one can stand almost any hardship if hope fills the breast and home and friends are at the journey’s end.

We passed one group of about 900 souls and only two mounted and armed gendarmes. “Why didn’t they kill the gendarmes?” has been asked me. That is easy enough, to be sure, but, having killed their guards, they remain at the mercy of the first band of armed men they meet, and they must go to villages, for the mountains of Turkey cannot support life. My wagon driver showed the tenderness (?) of his heart by remarking, as we passed this group: “Effendi, it is almost more than I can stand to see women and little children in such condition. But,” he continued, “there are some fine-looking girls in that bunch. I’ll get one when I get to the next town.” He then started to tell me some of the atrocious things of which the Armenians are accused. I found that, as time went on and the deportation gained momentum, the common people came to believe more and more the grossly exaggerated stories and whole-cloth lies manufactured for the very purpose of exciting the sympathy of the common people towards the scheme. Arrived at ——, I found the Armenian market-place closed and the shop doors shut and sealed by the Government, although as yet but a small proportion of the Armenian population had been deported from that particular place. Fourteen prominent Armenian merchants were hanged that night in this city. Passing to ——, I found the missionaries besieged with terror-stricken Armenian friends and neighbours who were living in daily terror of orders to move. The general deportation orders came a day or two later, and the people swarmed about the missionaries, beseeching help for life and protection of property. One can scarcely understand the strain to which the missionaries were subjected; and yet how helpless they were, imprisoned, as it were, in a country which was in the throes of war and shut off from intervention by foreign powers.

Rich, proud Armenians, crushed by the blow, seemed to age years in these days. Some, with tears streaming down their faces, came beseeching us to find a way out for them. Public auction of household and private effects was held in the market square. No one was allowed to buy by private sale, and the prices had to be approved by the officials. Orders came permitting the sale of houses and lands at auction, which raised the question in their minds: “If we sell for cash, in all probability our money will be taken from us, or if for Government promissory notes, will they have any value?” An order came exempting Protestants from the general deportation, and we rejoiced at the prospect of saving even a few. The result of this favour was, however, a distribution of Protestants, five to ten families each, to surrounding Turkish villages, where, surrounded by a Moslem community, they were forced to become Moslem or to suffer terrible persecution. As far as I can learn, no one attempts to pass judgment on any Armenian Protestant or Gregorian who has so “turned.” All we could do was to advise against it, realising as we did what it meant for them to marry into Moslem homes, as those who “turned” were forced to do. God alone knows the tremendous pressure brought to bear upon them, and the self-sacrificing spirit in which many of them sought in this way to save their own families from death by signing a scrap of paper. These papers were printed forms, indicating that the signer accepts of his free will and in full conscience the tenets of the Moslem faith.

When we consider the number forced into exile and the number beaten to death and tortured in a thousand ways, the comparatively small number that turned Moslem is a tribute to the staunchness of their hold on Christianity. Those who “turned” found that the Moslems were not true to their promise to leave such unmolested, for in many places these were forced to go into exile later on, although they were counted as Moslems. In one city about 1,000 families turned Moslem, but this being too large a number might be considered a menace, so they were deported all the same.

If the events of the past year demonstrate anything, they show the practical failure of Mohammedanism in its struggle for existence against Christianity—in its attempt to eliminate a race which, because of Christian education, has been proving increasingly a menace to stagnating Moslem civilisation. We may call it political necessity or what not, but in essence it is a nominally ruling class, jealous of a more progressive Christian race, striving by methods of primitive savagery to maintain the leading place.

105. ESKI SHEHR: LETTER FROM AN ARMENIAN VICTIM[144] PUBLISHED IN THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “HORIZON,” OF TIFLIS, 30th OCTOBER/12th NOVEMBER, 1915.

We shall perish of hunger; we have had to leave behind us everything we possess, and they are robbing us of the little money that we have brought with us, robbing us even of our clothes. Most of us have not a penny left. It is a cruel situation. The ferocity of the minor officials passes all limits. The evening before last, two gendarmes looted the tents of the exiles from the village of Kelidj (who had only arrived that day). Incidentally they wounded some of them with a perfect rain of blows. They also tried to carry off forty or fifty tents, and then one of them came to announce that the Tchaoush must be conciliated. We collected 400 piastres (£3 6s. 8d.) and handed it over to them on condition they left us in peace; one of the exiles sold his single blanket for 4 piastres in order to pay his share of the subscription. Most of us were plundered on the road. Before the exiles reach a station they are told: “You can start off, we will see that your baggage follows you;” and they are sent on their journey after their money, too, has been taken from them. During the journey the sick were abandoned by the roadside. Some threw their children into the rivers, others committed suicide. Why don’t people at least send us some relief?

Many have lost members of their family, and no one knows where they are. The exiles from the districts of Ismid and Broussa have been exposed at each station to indescribable sufferings, and are only waiting for the approach of death. From Eski Shehr to Konia the uplands are covered with the tents occupied by the Armenians. This frightful suffering inspires no pity in the ruthless officials, who throw themselves upon their wretched victims, armed with whips and cudgels, without distinction of sex or age.

During the last two days they have begun to transport the exiles further afield—free of charge! All that has happened here is nothing compared with what has been going on beyond Eregli and Bozanti. I have seen with my own eyes the convoy that marched to Konia on foot, and I simply cannot describe the condition of the old women and children. They had ceased to be human. Having obeyed the deportation order, they had paid a toll of 300 victims, and the widows had been marched over the mountains. As for the men, there were not many of them. There were other exiles who had been forced to come on foot, from all parts, because no general order has been issued for transporting the exiles by railway. The gendarmes demand enormous sums for granting the exiles permission to encamp from place to place and rest. But whether they go by train or on foot, the exiles are condemned in any case to pillage and ill-usage.

They are now beginning to deport the people in Syria and the Lebanon as well, and the first convoy of them has reached Konia. They are filling their places with Mohammedan emigrants from Europe. They distribute thirty loaves among 130 people, and even that not everywhere.

106. AFIUN KARA HISSAR: LETTER[145] DATED AFIUN KARA HISSAR, 10th/23rd SEPTEMBER, 1915; PUBLISHED IN THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “HORIZON” OF TIFLIS, 30th OCTOBER/12th NOVEMBER, 1915.

Some of the exiles have been sent to Konia, but on the bleak uplands of Afiun Kara Hissar, under canvas, or, in many cases, without tents at all, there are about 11,000 exiles in misery. Most of them have been reduced to an indescribable condition. They endured all kinds of hardships on their journey, and a large proportion of them died on the road. Many fathers have been compelled to abandon their children on the road. They have been obliged to march day after day on foot, pricked on at the point of yataghans and deluged with curses. In the struggle to keep up this unending journey on foot, they have been forced to abandon by the road such possessions as they had taken with them, even the most necessary articles, and they are now naked and shelterless on the frozen plateau.

This pitiful mass of sufferers is composed of Armenians from the towns and villages of Balikesri, Panderma, Erendjik, Hai Keui, Mikhalidj, Kassaba, Broussa, Gemleyik, Benli, Marmardjik, Karsakh, Gurlé, Yenidjé, Djera, Ezli, Adapazar, Karasu, Yalova, Tchoukour, Karsz, Kelidj, Shaklak, Mess Nor Keui, Tchingiler, Orta Keui and Keremet.

There are about ten priests from these villages among them.

The rich have become poor, and the poor, naked, famished and deplorably miserable, without help and without hope, are compassed by all the terrors of death. Exposed to freezing blasts and drenching rain, their life is one long agony. One would rather die than see such a spectacle.

The railway has been requisitioned for the transport of troops, so they have decided to leave this unfortunate mass of people here for an indefinite period. There is no means of escaping from this terrible life of exposure to the elements. The only means is death, and they are dying in numbers every day. There have been twelve deaths only to-day.

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Footnote 144:

Name withheld.

Footnote 145:

Name of writer withheld.

107. AFIUN KARA HISSAR: RESUMÉ OF A LETTER[146] DATED AFIUN KARA HISSAR, 2nd/15th OCTOBER, 1915; APPENDED TO THE MEMORANDUM (DOC. 11), DATED 15/28th OCTOBER, 1915, FROM A WELL-INFORMED SOURCE AT BUKAREST.

The 16,000 deported Armenians who were living in the tents have been sent to Konia, in cattle-trucks. At night, while thousands of these unfortunate people, without food or shelter, shiver with cold, those brutes who are supposed to be their guardians attack them with clubs and push them towards the station. Women, children and old men are packed together in the trucks. The men have to climb on to the top of the trucks, in spite of the dreadful cold. Their cries are heart-breaking, but all is in vain. Hunger, cold and fatigue, together with the Government’s deeds of violence, will soon achieve the extermination of this last remnant of the Armenian people, the former inhabitants of the Sandjak of Ismid, the Vilayet of Broussa and the neighbourhood. In spite of the great misery that prevails among the exiles, the Government took from them by force one hundred Turkish liras for the “Defense Nationale.”

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Footnote 146:

Name of writer withheld.

108. AFIUN KARA HISSAR: LETTER, DATED MASSACHUSETTS, 22nd NOVEMBER, 1915, FROM AN AMERICAN TRAVELLER; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

Mr. and Mrs. A., Miss B., a Greek student from our College who wished to come to America to study, my husband and I left BO., and, after travelling all day and night, reached Afiun Kara Hissar about nine o’clock the next morning. We had three hours to wait in Kara Hissar, so we took a carriage at the station and drove to the home of an Armenian doctor there—a well educated, fine young doctor, whom we had met on our previous visit to Kara Hissar. We found his wife and two small children at home, but the doctor had been taken a year ago to work for the wounded Turkish soldiers.

The wife had heard of the exiling of all the Armenians from different towns around her, and so she was packing a few things to take with her when her hour came to go. That hour arrived while we were in her home. All the Armenians were ordered to be at the station in twenty-four hours, to be sent—where? They did not know, but they did know that they had to leave everything—the little homes they had worked for for years, the few little things they had collected—all must be left to the plunder of the Turks.

It was one of the saddest hours I ever lived through; in fact, the hours that followed on the train, from Kara Hissar to Constantinople, were the saddest hours I ever spent.

I wish I could picture the scene in that Armenian home, and we knew that in hundreds of other homes in that very town the same heart-breaking scenes might be witnessed.

The courage of that brave little doctor’s wife, who knew she must take her two babies and face starvation and death with them. Many began to come to her home—to her, for comfort and cheer, and she gave it. I have never seen such courage before. You have to go to the darkest places of the earth to see the brightest lights, to the most obscure spot to find the greatest heroes.

Her bright smile, with no trace of fear in it, was like a beacon light in that mud village, where hundreds were doomed.

It was not because she did not understand how they felt; she was one of them. It was not because she had no dear ones in peril; her husband was far away, ministering to those who were sending her and her babies to destruction.

“Oh! there is no God for the Armenians,” said one Armenian, who, with others, had come in to talk it over.

Just then a poor woman rushed in to get some medicine for a young girl who had fainted when the order came.

Such despair, such hopelessness you have never seen on human faces in America.

“It is the slow massacre of our entire race,” said one woman.

“It is worse than massacre!” replied another man.

The town crier went through all the streets of the village, crying out that anyone who helped the Armenians in any way, gave them food, money or anything, would be beaten and cast into prison. It was more than we could stand.

“Have you any money?” my husband asked the doctor’s wife. “Yes,” she said; “a few liras; but many families will have nothing.”

After figuring out what it would cost us all to reach Constantinople, we gave them what money we had left in our small party. But really to help them we could do nothing, we were powerless to save their lives.

Already the Turks had taken our American school and church, and after a big procession through the streets had dedicated our church as a mosque and turned our school into a Turkish school—taken down the Cross and put up the Crescent.

Some weeks before, they had exiled our faithful Armenian pastor, who for a great many years had toiled there, as he himself told us, “to make a little oasis in that desert.”

For many weeks Mr. C. of our College in BO. had stayed in Kara Hissar to try and get back our church and school, but nothing could be done. The Turks had named our church “Patience Mosque,” because, they said, they had waited so many years to get it.

It was with broken hearts that we left the town, and hardly had we started on our way when we began to pass one train after another crowded, jammed with these poor people, being carried away to some spot where no food could be obtained. At every station where we stopped, we came side by side with one of these trains. It was made up of cattle-trucks, and the faces of little children were looking out from behind the tiny barred windows of each truck. The side doors were wide open, and one could plainly see old men and old women, young mothers with tiny babies, men, women and children, all huddled together like so many sheep or pigs—human beings treated worse than cattle are treated.

About eight o’clock that evening we came to a station where there stood one of these trains. The Armenians told us that they had been in the station for three days with no food. The Turks kept them from buying food; in fact, at the end of these trains there was a truck-full of Turkish soldiers ready to drive these poor people on when they reached the Salt Desert or whatever place they were being taken to.

Old women weeping, babies crying piteously. Oh, it was awful to see such brutality, to hear such suffering.

They told us that twenty babies had been thrown into a river as a train crossed—thrown by the mothers themselves, who could not bear to hear their little ones crying for food when there was no food to give them.

One woman gave birth to twins in one of those crowded trucks, and crossing a river she threw both her babies and then herself into the water.

Those who could not pay to ride in these cattle-trucks were forced to walk. All along the road, as our train passed, we saw them walking slowly and sadly along, driven from their homes like sheep to the slaughter.

A German officer was on the train with us, and I asked him if Germany had anything to do with this deportation, for I thought it was the most brutal thing that had ever happened. He said: “You can’t object to exiling a race; it’s only the way the Turks are doing it which is bad.” He said he had just come from the interior himself and had seen the most terrible sights he ever saw in his life. He said: “Hundreds of people were walking over the mountains, driven by soldiers. Many dead and dying by the roadside. Old women and little children too feeble to walk were strapped to the sides of donkeys. Babies lying dead in the road. Human life thrown away everywhere.”

The last thing we saw late at night and the first thing early in the morning was one train after another carrying its freight of human lives to destruction.

Another man on the train said that in one train he was in the mothers begged him to take their children to save them from such a death.

He said that an Armenian, a leading business man in Harpout, told him that he would rather kill his four daughters with his own hand than see the Turks take them from him. This Armenian was made to leave his home, his business and all he had and start off with his family to walk to whatever place the Turks desired to exile him to.

When we reached a station near Constantinople, we met a long train of Armenians that had just been exiled from Bardezag.

My husband and Mr. A. talked with one of the native teachers from our American school. Among other things he said that an old man was walking in the street in Bardezag when the order came to leave. The old man was deaf and did not understand what was going on, so, because he made no move to leave the town, the soldiers brutally shot him down in the street. The teacher said he could buy no food, for the soldiers kept them from buying any.

The crying of those babies and little children for food is still ringing in my ears. On every train we met we heard the same heart-rending cries of little children.

109. Q.: REPORT FROM DR. D., DATED Q., 8th SEPTEMBER, 1915; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

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